Why Does There Have to Be a God?

[Keep The Reason]

Okay I'm game tell; us why things exist in the first place.

I don't know. Nothing wrong with not knowing. But it's fulfilling and fun and wonderful trying to find out.

Oh, but theists don't need to, do they? "God Did It" suffices. In fact, I've never run across people who were more certain of why things exist at all than those people who are theists. They seem to know unreservedly!

But how do you know they were fundamentally mistaken. I know you have this idea that ancient people were sort of trying to do science but couldn't and got religion by mistake but there really isn't any evidence to support that; it's speculation on a very flimsy basis. What if people were not even trying to do what you think they were trying to do. But I will hold fire until I get your answer to the question you have claimed to be able to answer: why do things exist in the first place?

You based this on the completely fasbricated premise that I somehow laid claim to be able to answer why things exist in the first place. Well, since I didn't lay claim to that, you're now standing there with egg on your face having to say, "Oh, yeah, sorry, KTR, you didn't make that claim."

Ok, now that you have apologized for making that strawman statement, I know they are fundamentally mistaken because there is absolutely no corrboration for it, and there are literally tens of tousands of known competitive "also rans" in terms of these explanations. There is nothing in the Christian mythology to assert it is any more "Correct" about the nature of existence than that of the Iroquis mythology. And we pretty much know there are not "Long houses in the sky" as the Iroquios have suggested.

I don't think ancient people were "trying to do science" since they weren't aware of what science was. While you dismiss my analogy to humanity being like a child, what they were doing is precisely what a child does as it goes from touching and analyzing simple blocks, to stacking them, to scoping out plans to build, to making complex architectural structures. This is an anlaogy to learning, not to architecture, though architects did start simple and become more skilled and complex. But that is the point. Ancient people were trying to explain their world, and this simpler form is what they came up with. Just like a child tasting a block doesn't equate to a 101 story building with elevators, their earlier premises don't equate to what we now know about existence.

Theists have consciously trapped themselves into the "stacking the blocks" stage, insisting that doing so is what makes skyscrapers have complex systems and elevators. Well, the premise is at its core "right" -- but it's a lot more than "simply stacking blocks".

Well because people lived a long time ago does not mean they were wrong about everything and a belief in God does not imply a refusal to accept new ideas.

No-- but it does mean they have some block against discarding old ones that haven't panned out.

I mean what actually surprises me about the atheist on this forum is how little they know about modern thought.

I disagree. I think the atheists here have a fair grasp of epistemology-- in both a modern and historical context.

Anyway I'm glad you have finally admitted that you do not know what people get from the concept of God since you have told us enough times that you do know.

And... where have I said I know what people get out of it?

There's nothing wrong with security and comfort but how about challenge? purpose?

Nothing wrong with any of it, properly balanced.

I mean you can get all these things without God

Wait. We can? Then why don't we just do that? If it's possible to gain these things without god, then why god at all? Here you are saying that a god exists and has a plan which involves our safety, comfort, and offers us challenge and purpose-- and yet we can completely ignore all of that and get it without him?

But do people need to find something in God that no one could ever fund in any other way?

If you are asking me if I think they can do it without god, then yes, I think there is nothing in the god belief they get that they couldn't have elsewhere, shy of falsehood and distraction. If it is their goal to adopt distraction and falsehood, well, even then they can do so without gods, but adopting god is a pretty low-investment way of adopting distraction and falsehood.

And if they did find that could they ever communicate it?

Well, you'd think in a god-ordered universe, this wouldn't be an issue. But unfoirtunately, your god has apprently made it impossible for others discoveries to have any kind of cachet as we evolve as a species. Seems like people have their own ideas, and their own directions, and hey, he apprently created a world wherein eating an apple by oneself is unshareable knowledge. If you see him, you might want to ask him "Why?"

Yes, there are people who just don't have any interest in religion but most of them do not spend their time arguing against it.

And there are some who do. And there are many who make not a dime off it, and others who write books, lecture, make films... and make a living off of it. And the point being? What? That there's some lack of purpose or meaning to you for other people to have an enjoyment having such discussions?

You know that does not surprise me at all given the arguments you tend to use against theism - the psychological ones I mean not your abortive attempts to construct an empiricist epistemology.

I don't consider them "abortive"; though all systems can stand tightening and tweaking. What I do know is you theists, regardless of your attacks on those of us who critique your worldview, have yet to offer a single shred of demonstration that your beliefs are valid.

In only 10,000 years, and counting! That's gotta be a mean record. Come back in, let's say 9,850 years and see if the atheists have fared as poorly.

[Rian]

If it makes any difference, I mean if it matters at all one way or the other, I know a fair amount about my own thought, and I try my best to express it as clearly as possible.

I've always liked you, Jay!

Where does it say that I or anyone else needs to know anything about modern thought? What role does modern thought play in your ideas, opinions and goals? For that matter, what do you mean by "modern thought?"

Modern thought? What really amazes me is how people claim to know so much about ancient thought! ("the ancient people made up gods [speculated] because [insert speculated reason] ..." )

Anyway, I don't understand what you mean when you responded to me with "Why does there have to be an "if" part?". My point was that one of the possibilities of reality is that God created the universe and upholds it with his power, and if that is indeed the case, then there has to be a God in order for things to exist at all. Do you see what I mean?

[Keep The Reason]

Modern thought? What really amazes me is how people claim to know so much about ancient thought! ("the ancient people made up gods [speculated] because [insert speculated reason] ..." )

And why does this amaze you? Are you saying the Greeks asserting Zeus, Apollo, Hera, etc. were not making up these gods but they in fact actually existed? Either you believe they were created by man, or not-- there's no halfway in-between on that. So, which is it?

[humanguy]

If it makes any difference, I mean if it matters at all one way or the other, I know a fair amount about my own thought, and I try my best to express it as clearly as possible.

I've always liked you, Jay!

Aw, Rian. You make me blush. I have to confess that I've always liked you, sweet lady.

Where does it say that I or anyone else needs to know anything about modern thought? What role does modern thought play in your ideas, opinions and goals? For that matter, what do you mean by "modern thought?"

Modern thought? What really amazes me is how people claim to know so much about ancient thought! ("the ancient people made up gods [speculated] because [insert speculated reason] ..." )

Anyway, I don't understand what you mean when you responded to me with "Why does there have to be an if part?" My point was that one of the possibilities of reality is that God created the universe and upholds it with his power, and if that is indeed the case, then there has to be a God in order for things to exist at all. Do you see what I mean?

I do, Rian, I see what you mean. What I don't see, what I don't understand and have never understood, is why reality isn't sufficient just as it is. Do you see what I mean?

[mitchellmckain]

Humanguy's comment about having religion tell you what to think and how to live is ridiculous.

Fair enough, Mitch. There are many things that lazy humans rely on to avoid having to work things out by themselves and on their own. For some it's right-wing talk radio, for others it's hip-hop "music," for some it's religion. For example, when I read on this forum a Christian saying that it says thus-and-so in scripture and therefore that's just how it is, I'm seeing a lazy human being. You can say that I'm wrong about that all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that this is a case of a person letting something else, in this case the Bible, do his thinking for him. Obeying the rules without question is much easier and, dare I say, safer than going it on your own. I'm not saying that these humans are bad, I'm saying that they're lazy.

There are lazy human beings - people who always expect the things they want to be handed to them. But it is a fact of human existence that not everyone wants to invent their own wheel, mine their own ore and grow their own wheat. ALL of us rely on other people do some things for us so that we can focus on the things that we are really interested in.

There are also fakes and pretenders who only want the most superficial aspect of things such as the appearance of accomplishments and the admiration that goes with it, and so they will cheat at school, steal the work of others and lie to get such things. Perhaps there is even a little bit of the fake in a lot of people, so that that they do such things only occasionally or subtly so that they don't even realize that they are doing it to some degree. Nowhere is this more pronounced and obvious to me than in religion, at least, this is a problem that is addressed qute often in the Bible, such as in the writings of Isaiha, the words of Jesus and the writings of Paul.

And then there are those who simply get excited about something and talk to everyone about it when they really don't understand the issues anywhere near as much as they think they do. This is something we can see quite often in both science and relgion as well as many other things. The thing to watch for in this case is the willingness to learn. Just because we see another person repeating the same old silliness does NOT mean that they are refusing to learn. It only means that many ideas in the general population can change rather slowly.

[cleve]

... What I don't see, what I don't understand and have never understood, is why reality isn't sufficient just as it is. Do you see what I mean?

Humanguy,
For starters, how do you define reality? That might help me orient better as to what you are referring to when it comes to sufficiency.

[Moonwood the Hare]

I mean what actually surprises me about the atheist on this forum is how little they know about modern thought.

If it makes any difference, I mean if it matters at all one way or the other, I know a fair amount about my own thought, and I try my best to express it as clearly as possible.

Where does it say that I or anyone else needs to know anything about modern thought? What role does modern thought play in your ideas, opinions and goals? For that matter, what do you mean by "modern thought?"

Well Keep the Reason was making a case that we should disregard the thoughts of ancient people because we know so much more than they did. That of course raises the question of whether we know more about the relevant things. I would imagine there are whole aspects of life that ancient people knew far more about than we do - I mean ask the average modern guy to survive in the wild and I'd guess the ancient guys would have him licked. Anyway the particular question he thought the ancient people didn't have a clue about was why anything existed at all. So it looked like he was claiming modern people know more on that specific matter and as that sounds like a philosophical question then my point was that atheists on this site tend not to be well versed in modern philosophy. I wasn't making a point about atheists in general because a lot of the key modern thinkers have been atheists. Having said that I think if I was an atheist I might want to know what kind of things important atheistic thinkers have though and which of their ideas and approaches have been successfully refuted - I would expect Christians would want to do the same with regard to theistic arguments. But having said that I can accept that some people are not interested in that.

Modern thought begins a few centuries ago. Its most characteristic feature is a shift from a focus on being or what is to a focus on knowing. Hence it makes use of the critical method a lot. Ans the history of modern thought is a history of despair - we can't really know anything none of these methods do stand up to examination - alternating with optimism - of course we can know things and any day now we will use the critical method to build a bright new world. I would say people need to know about it to avoid repeating old mistakes

[Moonwood the Hare]

Okay I'm game tell; us why things exist in the first place.

I don't know. Nothing wrong with not knowing. But it's fulfilling and fun and wonderful trying to find out.

Oh, but theists don't need to, do they? "God Did It" suffices. In fact, I've never run across people who were more certain of why things exist at all than those people who are theists. They seem to know unreservedly!

Well when you said ancient people did not have a clue why things existed in the first place it looked like you were implying that today we do know. Okay I get it you meant they didn't have a clue and you don't have a clue. Which raises the question how if you don't know something you can be sure someone else has got it wrong. I think you have a shot at this below.

You based this on the completely fasbricated premise that I somehow laid claim to be able to answer why things exist in the first place. Well, since I didn't lay claim to that, you're now standing there with egg on your face having to say, "Oh, yeah, sorry, KTR, you didn't make that claim."

Ok, now that you have apologized for making that strawman statement, I know they are fundamentally mistaken because there is absolutely no corrboration for it, and there are literally tens of tousands of known competitive "also rans" in terms of these explanations. There is nothing in the Christian mythology to assert it is any more "Correct" about the nature of existence than that of the Iroquis mythology. And we pretty much know there are not "Long houses in the sky" as the Iroquios have suggested.

Okay you were not implying that you did know just that they didn't. But your logic here is faulty if a lot of conflicting answers are given to the same question then although that proves they cannot all be right it does not prove they must all be wrong. Well if we pretty much know something is not the case that would seem to me to be a good reason for not asserting it so there is after all something about the Christian mythology that gives it the edge of the Iroquis.

I don't think ancient people were "trying to do science" since they weren't aware of what science was. While you dismiss my analogy to humanity being like a child, what they were doing is precisely what a child does as it goes from touching and analyzing simple blocks, to stacking them, to scoping out plans to build, to making complex architectural structures. This is an anlaogy to learning, not to architecture, though architects did start simple and become more skilled and complex. But that is the point. Ancient people were trying to explain their world, and this simpler form is what they came up with. Just like a child tasting a block doesn't equate to a 101 story building with elevators, their earlier premises don't equate to what we now know about existence.

Theists have consciously trapped themselves into the "stacking the blocks" stage, insisting that doing so is what makes skyscrapers have complex systems and elevators. Well, the premise is at its core "right" -- but it's a lot more than "simply stacking blocks".

Given that the ancient Hebrews were not trying to do science or to answer scientific questions. I do not think there is any reason for saying the religious answer they gave was wrong. I understand your analogy. What it would imply is that if our understanding grows and develops in all areas then the same should happen to our religious understanding. In fact Christians (and Jews) have always believed that. First century Christians did not believe the same thing as Hebrews believed 1,000 years before even though they may have believed in the same God. The understanding of God has not remained static across the centuries though there may have been a few false starts. One of the interesting features of modern theology, which I think we can fairly say began with John Calvin (Luther is really the last medieval), is that it is much less ontological in its focus and so much less inclined to ask why there is anything at all. Indeed Calvin states quite explicitly that we can know almost nothing of God as he is in himself

Well because people lived a long time ago does not mean they were wrong about everything and a belief in God does not imply a refusal to accept new ideas.

No-- but it does mean they have some block against discarding old ones that haven't panned out.

Not really. I found it interesting that when I made the claim that people do not have privileged access to their own motives (a claim made by many atheist psychologists from Freud onwards) you made an appeal to tradition by saying this would undermine many accepted ideas in jurisprudence. I agreed that it might lead to a re-think (as in many ways it already has) and you did not seem to want to pursue the matter. Let's keep re-thinking. But you need to realise that Christians have been and still are responsible for a lot of creative re-thinking. I also think we do need people to apply the brakes when we stray too far from ancient wisdom. In the current time of global financial crisis isn't it at least interesting to note that the problem has come about through doing something condemned by every single ancient religion (usury) Now adapting all that ancient wisdom to the modern world - creative re-thinking - is not easy but I think we need to ask whether we are missing things that the ancients saw.

I mean what actually surprises me about the atheist on this forum is how little they know about modern thought.

I disagree. I think the atheists here have a fair grasp of epistemology-- in both a modern and historical context.

Well I don't see the evidence for that.

Anyway I'm glad you have finally admitted that you do not know what people get from the concept of God since you have told us enough times that you do know.

And... where have I said I know what people get out of it?

Every time you explain people's beliefs in terms of some kind of psychological need.

There's nothing wrong with security and comfort but how about challenge? purpose?

Nothing wrong with any of it, properly balanced.

And who decides what the proper balance is? Surely individuals need to work this out for themselves.

I mean you can get all these things without God

Wait. We can? Then why don't we just do that? If it's possible to gain these things without god, then why god at all? Here you are saying that a god exists and has a plan which involves our safety, comfort, and offers us challenge and purpose-- and yet we can completely ignore all of that and get it without him?

Well, suppose you said to me what is the purpose of reading a novel and I said it was for pleasure. You might reply that I could get pleasure from other things so there was no point in reading novels. I do believe that the worlds purposes are ultimately fulfilled in God but that does not mean that those who do not know God can have no part in that. I like the verse in Revelation where it says the kings of the earth take their glory into the heavenly city.

But do people need to find something in God that no one could ever fund in any other way?

If you are asking me if I think they can do it without god, then yes, I think there is nothing in the god belief they get that they couldn't have elsewhere, shy of falsehood and distraction. If it is their goal to adopt distraction and falsehood, well, even then they can do so without gods, but adopting god is a pretty low-investment way of adopting distraction and falsehood.

Well what I mean is if someone explains what they get from God in very general terms, then it will always be possible to say you can get that in some other way. If you want to know more specifically what people get then you cannot know that because that comes at the level of personal experience. It's like you said what do you get out of your relationship with your wife and I listed things and you said, well you could get all that somewhere else, I don't know why you bother. At a certain point you just can't eff the ineffable.

And if they did find that could they ever communicate it?

Well, you'd think in a god-ordered universe, this wouldn't be an issue. But unfoirtunately, your god has apprently made it impossible for others discoveries to have any kind of cachet as we evolve as a species. Seems like people have their own ideas, and their own directions, and hey, he apprently created a world wherein eating an apple by oneself is unshareable knowledge. If you see him, you might want to ask him "Why?"

Not sure what you mean here but it looks to me like one of those things where someone says why can't God let things be exactly the same as they are and yet completely different.

You know that does not surprise me at all given the arguments you tend to use against theism - the psychological ones I mean not your abortive attempts to construct an empiricist epistemology.

I don't consider them "abortive"; though all systems can stand tightening and tweaking. What I do know is you theists, regardless of your attacks on those of us who critique your worldview, have yet to offer a single shred of demonstration that your beliefs are valid.

Well I keep asking what you mean by demonstration and you keep not answering. To say it again either you mean a thing is demonstrated when you can point to something consistent with it being the case or you mean a thing is demonstrated when you can point to something which would be the case only if it were the case. The second is impossible for a whole range of things so if you will only accept the second you are in deep trouble; specifically it cannot be demonstrated in this way that you should only accept things that can be demonstrated in this way so the theory does not meet its own criteria for validity. If you mean the first then God can be demonstrated and I have given you the demonstration.

[humanguy]

... What I don't see, what I don't understand and have never understood, is why reality isn't sufficient just as it is. Do you see what I mean?

Humanguy,
For starters, how do you define reality? That might help me orient better as to what you are referring to when it comes to sufficiency.

Reality is you typing the above sentence on a computer that you paid for with money that you earned by working for it.

[Keep The Reason]

Well Keep the Reason was making a case that we should disregard the thoughts of ancient people because we know so much more than they did.

Who said "disregard"? I clearly have said we have built on those before us, and my analogous overview is that of an individual adding to their body of knowledge from infancy on.

I think your entire following post collpases based on this faulty strawman that I never said, and you owe me an apology for asserting thart I ever said we "disregard" such knowledge. I'm actually surprised at you. You're more skilled than this, I thought.

And you do the same thing with the "not a clue" statement in your next post. Do better, and I'll respond.

[humanguy]

There are lazy human beings - people who always expect the things they want to be handed to them. But it is a fact of human existence that not everyone wants to invent their own wheel, mine their own ore and grow their own wheat. ALL of us rely on other people do some things for us so that we can focus on the things that we are really interested in.

Very true.

There are also fakes and pretenders who only want the most superficial aspect of things such as the appearance of accomplishments and the admiration that goes with it, and so they will cheat at school, steal the work of others and lie to get such things. Perhaps there is even a little bit of the fake in a lot of people, so that that they do such things only occasionally or subtly so that they don't even realize that they are doing it to some degree. Nowhere is this more pronounced and obvious to me than in religion, at least, this is a problem that is addressed qute often in the Bible, such as in the writings of Isaiha, the words of Jesus and the writings of Paul.

That could be the topic of a whole other thread. It's an interesting concept: fakery in religion. In the entertainment business you'll see it all the time, the phonies and the parasites and the posers. Strange to think that it also happens in religion, but I can see how it could, people being people.

And then there are those who simply get excited about something and talk to everyone about it when they really don't understand the issues anywhere near as much as they think they do. This is something we can see quite often in both science and relgion as well as many other things. The thing to watch for in this case is the willingness to learn. Just because we see another person repeating the same old silliness does NOT mean that they are refusing to learn. It only means that many ideas in the general population can change rather slowly.

Agreed, but only up to a point. It's a matter of necessity to learn in order to grow. There was a time when our survival depended on it. Even though it's not so much a matter of survival anymore, the necessity to learn is still there, I think. A person should be willing to at least have his assumptions and ideologies challenged. The person who is unwilling to have those things challenged is in a state of stagnation and of no real use to himself or anyone else. I would even go so far as to say that a person living in such a stagnated state is potentially harmful, although that may be taking it a bit far. Certainly we could agree that such people are unpleasant to be around.

[Moonwood the Hare]

Well Keep the Reason was making a case that we should disregard the thoughts of ancient people because we know so much more than they did.

Who said "disregard"? I clearly have said we have built on those before us, and my analogous overview is that of an individual adding to their body of knowledge from infancy on.

I think your entire following post collpases based on this faulty strawman that I never said, and you owe me an apology for asserting thart I ever said we "disregard" such knowledge. I'm actually surprised at you. You're more skilled than this, I thought.

And you do the same thing with the "not a clue" statement in your next post. Do better, and I'll respond.

Well you said,

I would say those peoples were anything but lazy -- they worked damned hard trying to figure things out, but they were simply mistaken.

If they were simply mistaken then surely that implies we should disregard their thoughts. It does not make a lot of sense to me to say this view is simply mistaken but we should build on it, even if you add to that 'but the person holding that view worked hard to draw his wrong conclusion.' And you did say in as many words that these people didn't have a clue why things exist and that you don't either and seem to be saying that the fact that you don't know must prove that they didn't know. and then you lose me. Isn't it at least logically possible that they did know even though you don't.

Although I would want to add that the buck does have to stop somewhere and eventually we have to say about something I don't know why that exists it just does - and whatever it is that just is and cannot be explained in terms of anything more ultimate that is the divine.

[Rian]

Modern thought? What really amazes me is how people claim to know so much about ancient thought! ("the ancient people made up gods [speculated] because [insert speculated reason] ..." )

And why does this amaze you? Are you saying the Greeks asserting Zeus, Apollo, Hera, etc. were not making up these gods but they in fact actually existed? Either you believe they were created by man, or not-- there's no halfway in-between on that. So, which is it?

You've got it completely wrong. Try re-reading. What I was pointing out were the parts that were speculation on the part of us moderns, not if they actually existed or not. Also, you're mixing up two separate issues - they can be created by man or not, but independently, they can exist or not. But that's not what I was talking about.

What I was saying was this: many atheists speculate that the ancients made up the gods for reasons that are speculation, and they usually talk about those speculations like they were absolute fact, and usually in a mocking kind of way (those poor stupid ancients) and like now that we know more, we can conclude that there's no god. Like "the ancients made up gods because they didn't understand lightning, like we do today. And since we know how lightning works, we don't need to posit a god." But how do they know that's how the ancients thought, or why they thought gods existed or not? I think it's more likely that they thought god existed, and in a separate step, attributed things like lightning to him (but note that I'm at least putting it as a hypothesis, not a fact, since I can't read the minds of the ancients). What those atheists entirely miss is that although we know the mechanism of lightning, we're still just as much in the dark as the ancients were as to where the materials for lightning got here.

[Rian]

If it makes any difference, I mean if it matters at all one way or the other, I know a fair amount about my own thought, and I try my best to express it as clearly as possible.

I've always liked you, Jay!

Aw, Rian. You make me blush. I have to confess that I've always liked you, sweet lady.

Well, that made my day better - thank you, sir! (the dr. found lots of large nodules in my thyroid - will have to test for cancer after Christmas)

Anyway, I don't understand what you mean when you responded to me with "Why does there have to be an if part?" My point was that one of the possibilities of reality is that God created the universe and upholds it with his power, and if that is indeed the case, then there has to be a God in order for things to exist at all. Do you see what I mean?

I do, Rian, I see what you mean. What I don't see, what I don't understand and have never understood, is why reality isn't sufficient just as it is. Do you see what I mean?

I think so, now - let me know if this is right:

either:
1) God doesn't exist, so why do people make him up?
2) God does exist, and made the universe and upholds it with his power, but why doesn't he just leave us alone?

Is that what you're saying? I mean, you really need to look at both options (exist/doesn't exist) to answer the question. Were you talking about #1 only, or both #1 and #2, or did I entirely miss it again?

[humanguy]

either:
1) God doesn't exist, so why do people make him up?
2) God does exist, and made the universe and upholds it with his power, but why doesn't he just leave us alone?

Is that what you're saying? I mean, you really need to look at both options (exist/doesn't exist) to answer the question. Were you talking about #1 only, or both #1 and #2, or did I entirely miss it again?

Actually, I'm trying (and not doing very well) to examine the thinking that would look at this world and our human existence on it, and somehow come to the conclusion that it all isn't enough, that there needs to be some sort of a supernatural realm or being/beings that created and control all of...this, whatever this is.