Does Anybody Think They Actually Have Evidence for the Existence of God?

H2 had a show called "Proving God". On the show science proved that there are people with a gene in their DNA called the "God gene". People with the gene believe in God, those without the gene don't. So God can't be proven to those without the gene. And those with the gene must be God's chosen. If God doesn't exist, science sure is spending a ton of money trying to find something that isn't there.

 

But it is still incorrect.

 

Response: Yet your inability to prove so suports evidence to the contrary.

 

Interesting note, those with the God gene come from every religion, except atheism and satanism.

 

Really? You won't accept that knowledge and intelligence are separate entities until I provide evidence?

 

Response: No one stated that knowledge and intelligence means the samething. Once again, your point is pointless.

 

I agree with you, but that is essentially a tautology. Now, to apply this logic, you have to prove that the Universe was planned to show it had a planner.

And secondly, you still haven't given an example of chance creating disorder.

 

Once again I remind you of a person who stated this: "Not knowing is also a lak of intelligence".

Is that somehow different from saying that knowledge is intelligence?

 

Sorry I noticed a typo/mis-edit the sentence that read as

"The first two premises the conclusion otherwise correctly known as the proposition.", should have read;

The first two premises support (infer) the conclusion (the proposition). Its a categorical syllogism because the first two premises infer (support) the third premise (the proposition).

I hope that is little easier to understand.I will address the rest of your reply when I have more time than a lunch break~

reva

 

Hi gophangover this (the following is not directed at you it’s just some general info) ; With all due respect to those that use the history channel for anything more than entertainment should use extreme caution when repeating something seen on the show as scientific fact. Quoting the thing may cause embarrassment due to the channel taking far too much artistic license in their spin of the subject at hand. That goes double for the science channel or similar channels. Nova is better but still is spun and reeks with mistakes due to omission, but rarely has outright mistakes.

As far as the God gene is concerned. I read about it about ten years ago and did not give it too much attention. I knew the God Gene theory was based one unpublished study. It still is not well received by those who regard peer review, but embraced as near bible for militant/activist atheists and others wishing to discredit religious or spiritual beliefs. I thank God for the new Christian and other religious apologists especially those that hold advanced degrees that can educate the skeptics who are so behind the times concerning those that hold a spiritual/religious and or metaphysical paradigm one would suspect they just stepped out of the scopes monkey trial courtroom in 1925..

reva

 

Hmm’ if member Fatihah’s statement is a tautology as you claim, the claim is correct without a substantiating evidenceor proof. In logic a tautology is a statement that is unconditionally true by virtue of its form alone.

reva

 

One more post in this thread then I am outta here;

Originally Posted by Fatihah
Response: A plan requires intelligence. As shown in the example, paint has no intelligence, thus it cannot plan to create a face painting on its own, without the intelligence of a person who can align the paint to create a face painting. Once again showing that creation originating from chance causes disorder, thus showing that the order in the universe originated from intelligent design.

I agree with your claim Fatihah. I use a similar method as evidence for the existence of God. It’s not entirely my own, I first read about this theory about five years ago, and is one of the longest running debates on internet infidels site. The site has many members with advanced degrees so is a good indicator of the validity of Perry Marshalls theory. He says :

“To the extent that science can demonstrate anything, the information in DNA is evidence of design in living things” In other words the painting you describe is really a kind of code, language is another, there are many examples. Nature can produce some complex things like snowflakes etc but not code. There is no known natural process known to science that creates coded information according to Perry. He goes on;


1) DNA is not merely a molecule with a pattern; it is a code, a language, and an information storage mechanism.
2) All codes are created by a conscious mind; there is no natural process known to science that creates coded information.
3) Therefore DNA was designed by a mind.
If you can provide an empirical example of a code or language that
occurs naturally, you’ve toppled my proof. All you need is one.


reva

 

And inside my computer are several buses. They are not real buses that ferry people around. Just because we use a word to describe something that it has a strong semblance to, does not make it the same thing.

This would be untrue if DNA occurred naturally. I think we can agree that there's no unanimous consensus on how DNA was created, so we don't actually know if this premise is true or not.

 

some people's definition of proof is rather laughable. realize that muslims think they have proof also, and that their idea of it is actually a little more compelling, but inadequate just the same.

 

Yes, and saying that a plan needs a planner is a tautology. To have a plan you MUST have a planner.

 

Before you even get that far you gotta prove that whatever event happened was actually planned. "Plan" is a bare assertion, bro.

You gotta show the results of the action or event was intended. You can't just presuppose "plan" and then rely on the presupposition and tautological rhetoric to prove "Planner."

How do you determine the difference between things that are planned and things that occur by accident/chance?

Hopefully not by beauty or some other perceived personal benefit. That aint the way to determine intent because it also relies on the presupposition of " If there is a god, it is benevolent."

 

Oh, no, I think you misunderstood. That was the point I was trying to make to Fatihah.

 

Okay.

The point is that there need to be shown that things that happened were intended to happen. Until we do that, aint no point in claiming "design."

Just because things in nature can be pleasant to look at don't mean they were guided by supernatural forces to be that way.

 

I can agree with that as a partial answer. However the bible was not in every household, or even in every ‘neighborhood’ because it had not been yet published, and other factors, ie illiteracy etc. I suppose you mean oral tradition from which the bible was written? Of course being a theist I believe some of the bible was written and revealed by means not known to science even today, well perhaps science has touched on paranormal events explained by quantum processes such as entanglement and quantum brain functions to name a few of many likely suspects. I won’t comment on the nomadic people quote, not knowing exactly the time* or the area or the people* you reference.

*Time = Were you referencing the era of Abraham or Jesus or ? When you referenced 'the people' did you mean Jesus’ time or did you mean the Nomadic ‘Israelites’ ie or the people led by Moses etc ?

I will play the devils advocate by saying pork was considered unclean in many areas of Egypt and the near/middle east even before the mosaic laws were created, certainly way before the bible was complied or published (thousand of years). Not playing the DA, Most of the people probably knew without the punishment of God that pork was risky due to no pork bones being found in large areas. Archeologists do however track ancestors of the Israeli’s by plotting the excavations that have no pork bones on a graph.I will say that I have no reason to disagree with your claims, however they do not lend evdience that I was wrong. I was just speculating anyway. The trouble is that supernatural events have no empirical backed proof only evidence, such as eyewitness accounts etc.

Again I agree that that is only an assumption that may have evidence to support it in religions other than Christianity. If not for religion we would probably never had advanced nearly as quickly as we did with the organizational power of mass spirituality. There would have been no pyramids in Egypt or south America no social glue to hold together populous cities. However maybe hunter gatherers working together as a group would have occurred, but larger groups were enabled by such things as organized religion.

Ha ha lol…I would argue against that! Its been five thousand years or 100,000 > 1,000,000+ years if you count modern man as point to begin. Now look at a map or a spread sheet naming the religions and the population of each. Islam and Christianity alone has about four billion believers. Add the rest and the number increases to near seven billion people. Not exactly throwing off orthodoxy to my eyes. And taken as a whole the number is increasing! This is in 2012!

Disagree, for various reasons. In fact man will increase in needs of spirituality even if for the wrong reasons. As the world civilizations suffer the pains of old age, the people will reach out for God. Even now when a series of disasters happen a large percentage of the population blame God.

You probably only know the censored version of Galileo history lol. There was a lot more to it than the church crushing a poor little guy trying to sell his books. Remember the time it happened. The church of the inquisition and earlier was not the church of today! It was a government as well as a church, mostly government for all intensive purposes. The Church did rule with an iron hand but used a grossly un-Christian method to do so. However what it decreed was the 'law' of the land. Just like today if someone threatens the status quo of some governments they will be jailed or worse, disappear. An arrogant Galileo challenged the church like not unlike some uppity secular scientists do today, however the power situation was reversed and Mr Galileo suffered the consequences of his questionable I would say silly actions. The history of Galileo’s troubles with authority is far more involved and you should read the true history of what really happened. In the way I view it the church and religion including the ancient religious and spiritual people advanced science more than any other single factor. In fact its my belief if the scientific method had adopted Metaphysics as per Gödel as model with positive science as a lesser partner, we would be much more advanced today.

reva.

 

You fail to understand the power of words and the validity of logical arguments etc, just as I did before I learned by experience and mean professors that they did mean far more than just a definition when used in debate or discussion.

Still you did not describe how the information in the DNA originated. Try again please. So, again code does appear out of nowhere it always has a intelligence to create it. Tell me how did the first DNA code occur naturally. You see logic is inescapable, and powerful.

reva

 

This thread growing intriguing and exciting more and more, comment after comment. I don't think that discussing about the existance of Gravity has connection with the God. I believe in the God, but I don't think that we don't have the ability to think independently. The Gravity is a huge power, which enabled by the humans, we are the energy power of the Gravity, and our thoughts are the engine of it. The God is exist, but he doesn't control our lives. No one has an evidence about the existence of the God, but our beliefs are become for real. Someone has created our world, our earth we're living on. Is it possible that we don't have any force above all powers, abilities and the humanity? I guess it isn't possible.

 

Mostly I was tryin’ to determine if you meant a logical tautology vs a general tautology ie too much redundancy. I was and am not commenting on the accuracy or validity of his statement (yet)*. If it was indeed a valid (logical) tautology** his statement would be true without having to validate a planner the only other option would be that the statement was incorrect ie not a valid logical tautology. However you were saying that his statement was a general tautology, thus the rule of deductive inference etc do not apply.

* I think F was describing a couple of laws combined ie entropy and chaos with other elements. So after he clarifies I may agree with his statements about chaotic patterns and organized patterns as in the paint example.

** Types/names of tautologies are not formally correct, I forget the correct terminology of different kinds of tautologies, its been a lonnnng time since philosophy 101

*** For everyones use; Definition of tautologys in logic and in general use.. reva:

(1) A redundancy (sense #3)--in particular the needless repetition of an idea using different words. (Repetition of the same sense is tautology. Repetition of the same sound is tautophony.)
(2) In logic, a statement that is unconditionally true by virtue of its form alone; for example, "Socrates is either mortal or he's not." Adjective: tautologous or tautological.

reva

 

Oops...! I posted reply # 444 (above) accidentally here in the wrong thread, it was my fault, not the server, not hackers, not nothin' but me I dun' it, an early morning before coffee brain fart.... I do wish to eliminate the silly 20 min edit time limit would go away. Still even in the wrong thread it is kind of relevant...sorry for the mistake!

~reva~

 

There are more developed arguments, to say the least that support John and Fatihah’s claims. The assertions of John and Fatihah’s seem to be branches of and addons to ‘arguments from design’ i.e. ‘Teleological Arguments for God's Existence’. Are you interested in seeing them ? They represent evidence of Gods existence, not as good as the KCA, still good stuff. Many if not all have endured attacks by seculars of many disciplines and survived. Still , some are good others are better and one or two are excellent. I use them as additional information to support my paradigm that God exists and is the basis of reality as opposed to using science to describe reality. These arguments lend evidence to support the claim that it is more logical and rational to believe in GID (God or an Intelligent Designer), or a creator etc than clinging to the illogical belief that something (the universe) began to exist from nothing, or ex nihilo nihil fit, Latin for from nothing comes nothing. Anyway here is the list;

Teleological Arguments for God's Existence (Titles not relevant deleted)

2a. Design Inference Patterns
2.1 Analogical Design Arguments: Schema 1
2.2 Deductive Design Arguments: Schema 2
2.3 Inferences to the Best Explanation/Abductive Design Arguments: Schema 3
3. Alternative Explanation
3.1 Explaining Away
3.3 Indirect Causation, Design and Evidences
4. Further Contemporary Design Discussions
4.1 Cosmic Fine-Tuning
4.2 Many-universe Theories

reva

 

So rather than debate the point in any way whatsoever, you're making an appeal to authority? I don't think an argument so profoundly weak needs any kind of rebuttal.

I already made it crystal clear that I think nobody knows for certain how the first one came about, there's no need to make it look like I am saying something I'm not. This second point is that "we dont know if it has ever happened anywhere else" isnt the same as "it couldnt have happened". Not by a loooooong shot.