Arguments for the Existence of God

[Petros Agapetos]

Here is another counter-apologetic. Why does first cause necessitate a God-like being? Natural processes and multiple creators are not ruled out.

Even if we grant that a first cause exists, it makes no sense to assume that it is any kind of god, let alone Yahweh. The idea of an intelligent, universe-creating god "just existing" is far more difficult to explain than the universe itself "just existing". Intelligence is one of the most complex things we are aware of in the universe. To assume the existence of a being who is so intelligent that it can design an entire universe, as well as micromanage the personal lives of billions of people on earth through prayer, would require an enormous amount of explanation.

[Robocop]

You say you don't see God so "he" doesn't exist?

Do you see thoughts of some person's brain? No? Means that person and his/her brain doesn't exist...or?

Well you don't see thoughts of that person, where is evidence those thoughts exist?

Should doctor see human thoughts in brain while he operates on brain? He see only ORGAN - Brain.

Be open minded, fuck religions they have nothin to do with God, they never did.

[Petros Agapetos]

I find the cosmological argument the most clearly stated. But as we can see, it has flaws in it, therefore it is not sound.

[Root]

You say you don't see God so "he" doesn't exist?

Do you see thoughts of some person's brain? No? Means that person and his/her brain doesn't exist...or?

Well you don't see thoughts of that person, where is evidence those thoughts exist?

Should doctor see human thoughts in brain while he operates on brain? He see only ORGAN - Brain.

Be open minded, fuck religions they have nothin to do with God, they never did.

This.


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[Raikaswinþs]

God may or may not exist. The God(s) of human religions do not exist however outside the minds of those who believe in them.

[Petros Agapetos]

Special pleading regarding God existing outside of time

If "everything that exists has a cause" then there cannot exist anything that does not have a cause, which means that there is no first cause. Either some things can exist without causes, or nothing can. It can't be both ways. God is considered to be exempt from infinite regress by special pleading.

Changing "Everything that exists has a cause" to "Everything that begins to exist has a cause" produces a variant known as the Kalam cosmological argument.

Christians try to avoid regress of God by saying "God does not need a cause because He is outside of time." This is a glib non-answer. If all that is required to get around the first cause argument is an entity that exists outside of time, then all we need to do is postulate a single particle that exists outside of time and triggered the Big Bang. It need not have any additional powers. Besides, this particle might even exist, depending on how you define "outside of time." Photons (light particles) do not experience time, since they move at the speed of light. Therefore, according to this argument, light can pop into existence without cause.

Theists will object that this particle should have a cause. But they have already refuted this argument by granting that there exists an uncaused cause in the first place. If God can exist without a cause, why not a particle? Why not the universe? It may be the universe is the necessarily existent being and it is impossible for it to be in any other state.

[Petros Agapetos]

There are many versions of Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA)

Most common is this one:

Everything that begins to exist have a cause.
The Universe began to exist.
Therefore, Universe has a cause.

Funny thing is that, it doesn't establish any specific cause of the Universe. It doesn't argue for any god.
We can take it a bit further...

God is the uncaused cause of the Universe.
Therefore god didn't begin to exist. (a)


From postulate (a) we conclude that either god doesn't exist or always existed. So, basically the argument proves nothing at all!

A new modified version of the argument as follows...

All finite and contingent things have a cause.
A chain of infinite temporal regress is an actual infinite which can not exist in reality. (b)
Therefore there is a first cause.


Now theists say that this first cause must be god. But there is a problem with this first cause. According to the premise this first cause must have to be infinite and independent.

God is an actual infinite. (c)
Therefore god doesn't exist. [from (b) and (c)]

[Petros Agapetos]

Another problem is, god must have to be either dynamic or static.

If god is dynamic then it has internal time, causality and chain of events. Then it suffers from same problem as the argument shows.

If god is static then it doesn't change. A changeless thing can not be a first cause.

Most importantly, it has been proven in Quantum Mechanics that finite and contingent things can occur without any cause. Virtual particles and anti-particles appear in vacuum space without any cause. It is called vacuum energy fluctuation or quantum fluctuation. Quantum fluctuation is spontaneous, random and uncaused.

[Petros Agapetos]

William Lane Craig's version of the kalam cosmological argument is as follows:

Premise 1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
Premise 2. The universe began to exist.
Conclusion. Therefore, the universe must have a cause.

The distinction between the first premise and the traditional cosmological argument's principle of sufficient reason is that it distinguishes effects in general from those that have a beginning. This qualification leaves open an interesting possibility that some things in the universe might exist that never began to exist. But Craig is not that sloppy, so before we jump on this observation, we need to address the kalam argument's second premise and its support.

The kalam argument's second premise—"The universe began to exist"—is a claim that seems more of a presupposition than a fact, but watch how it is supported:

An actual infinite cannot exist.
A beginningless series of events is an actual infinite.
Therefore, the universe cannot have existed infinitely in the past, as that would be a beginningless series of events.

[Petros Agapetos]

Actual Infinite

The important term here is, of course, "actual infinite." Wikipedia has the following to say about actual infinities:

"Actual infinity is the notion that all (natural, real etc.) numbers can be enumerated in any sense sufficiently definite for them to form a set together. Hence, in the philosophy of mathematics, the abstraction of actual infinity is the acceptance of infinite entities, such as the set of all natural numbers or an arbitrary sequence of rational numbers, as given objects."

Furthermore:

"The mathematical meaning of the term actual in actual infinity is synonymous with definite, completed, extended or existential, but not to be mistaken for physically existing. The question of whether natural or real numbers form definite sets is therefore independent of the question of whether infinite things exist physically in nature."