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Why must god exist? Can someone give me a religious explanation?
Best I've been able to understand, the only reason god must exist is a religious reason, and if anyone doesn't know most of those reasons by now, I've really got to wonder why...
The most basic would be because there obviously is something responsible for all existence, life, and our consciousness which at a minimum would be defined as God.
Always interesting to see this sort of rationale repeated in this forum and everywhere else so quickly and confidently even though the only thing obvious here is the problem with this sort of rationale...
Just because something is responsible for all existence certainly does not mean a god must exist. Here yet again if we're going to accept that a god exists for this sort of reason, clearly we've got to apply the same sort of logic and reason toward explaining god's existence. To avoid that dead-end circular pretzel logic, we have little choice but to consider the fact that nothing is responsible for all that exists. That all existence has always been, with no beginning and no end.
Nothing more or less than all religious people seem perfectly able to comprehend about god. No different.
Not that this explanation can ever be accepted by religious people of course, so back to everyone's personal version of their god we go. The reasons we insist on this sort of pretzel logic is remarkable all considered, but there is evidence the "slow maturing of man" is beginning to bring about better reason and logic about the truth of these matters over time.
The simplest reason is cause and effect. We exist, as does the physical universe. So SOMETHING had to have caused that.
I always like to list the many things we humans attributed to god because of the same sort of logic. Many things we insisted were caused by god, the will of god, the wrath of god...
All of which we now know better to have been caused by SOMETHING else!
Always interesting to see this sort of rationale repeated in this forum and everywhere else so quickly and confidently even though the only thing obvious here is the problem with this sort of rationale...
Just because something is responsible for all existence certainly does not mean a god must exist. Here yet again if we're going to accept that a god exists for this sort of reason, clearly we've got to apply the same sort of logic and reason toward explaining god's existence. To avoid that dead-end circular pretzel logic, we have little choice but to consider the fact that nothing is responsible for all that exists. That all existence has always been, with no beginning and no end.
Nothing more or less than all religious people seem perfectly able to comprehend about god. No different.
Not that this explanation can ever be accepted by religious people of course, so back to everyone's personal version of their god we go. The reasons we insist on this sort of pretzel logic is remarkable all considered, but there is evidence the "slow maturing of man" is beginning to bring about better reason and logic about the truth of these matters over time.
Eliminating the stupid infinite regress just requires accepting that our Reality has always been with no beginning and no end. That supposition is applicable to both versions. Your unwarranted arrogance is reflected in the fact that you actually think your no God version is superior to the God version when NEITHER can be established unequivocally.
In fact, your version requires accepting the magical "emergence" of life and consciousness from a lifeless, nonconscious, elemental Reality. To any truly objective unbiased observer that is a higher bar than simply accepting that Reality itself is life and consciousness as the substrate.
Based upon this...there are things that objectively exist that comport with those various meanings. Thus...GOD, as defined, must exist.
So...there ya go.
God is a comedian playing to an audience that's too afraid to laugh/Voltaire
I love that saying!
Widely attributed to Voltaire but not actually found anywhere in his writings. It actually was uttered by HL Mencken.
In my personal experience of fundamentalism, it would better be phrased as "afraid not to laugh" since it is comedy after all. We were always bucking each other up to seem joyous and thrilled to be alive.
I always like to list the many things we humans attributed to god because of the same sort of logic. Many things we insisted were caused by god, the will of god, the wrath of god...
All of which we now know better to have been caused by SOMETHING else!
I'm not talking about the wind and the rain. I'm talking about the space for the universe. The matter. The fact that it all began in the first place.
I'm not talking about the wind and the rain. I'm talking about the space for the universe. The matter. The fact that it all began in the first place.
If you posit that god is a necessary cause for existence, it just kicks the can down the road, because now you still have a different uncaused thing: god. Making an exception for god would be a special pleading fallacy.
You also have the problem that even if there is a creator it doesn't mean that it's yours, or your understanding of him.
Even time itself breaks down as you approach the "big bang", near as I can understand this stuff without being a mathematician or a physicist. So I think people of all persuasions should quit making confident pronouncements about this until more data is available.
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