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Why is it good that God exists?

Didums

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It still makes no sense either way, as I explained earlier in this thread in post #18.

And your idea is flawed for this reason: The Universe will Die in future, Heat death from an expanding Universe has huge implications against the existence of heaven.
 

Lucifer

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You do not understand that Neptune does exist, something doesnt exist because you believe or feel it to be so. It exist because everyone following the same pattern as you can find it touch it taste etc to infinitum. Neptune exists because anyperson can use the laws of science to view neptune, as many astrologers have. Defending heaven with relentless what ifs is irelevant. When there are two answers, and no proof that it does or doesnt exist, then the simpler answer is to be observed until proof to the contrary can be found. The simple answer is heaven is fictional.
 

lowtech redneck

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As far as our life here, it would depend on if you believe that God takes an active part in the goings on in the world, or if He sits back and watches as the world burns.

Honestly, I prefer that kind of God; I seriously wish I was a Deist.
 

lowtech redneck

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Would it?
Is the notion of "free will" truly compatible with an omnipotent God?



Unless, of course, you thought you were one of the people destined for hell.
(I can't think of a worse anxiety in life, than to expect in the back of your mind on a daily basis to spend an eternity in torment upon death.)



Would it actually mean that [if God exists]?

And are we hurling towards oblivion [even if God doesn't exist]?



If that's the case, you just have to game the system.

And a God who actually lets people game the system isn't much of a God, is s/he?

Remember, I'm positing a mostly Deistic sort of God. I think most Christians assume they are going to Heaven, either through their spiritual choice or because they are manifestly among the Elect (depending on their stance toward predestination). If an omnipotent God created humans so they would have free will, and refrained from directly interfering with that process through mind control, then I don't see any necessary contradiction between an omnipotent God and free-will. If it could be proven that we have eternal consciousness and free will, then I personally could take or leave a God, though others may prefer a more personal type of spirituality, as Toonia explained. A "God" framework, to me, is simply shorthand for metaphysical wants. Finally, I find the notion of there being a God but no eternal consciousness or free will to be just about the most depressing metaphysical reality that could exist.
 
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reason

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You do not understand that Neptune does exist
I don't?

Something doesnt exist because you believe or feel it to be so.
No, but then neither does something exist because 'everyone following the same pattern can find, touch, or taste it.' If something exists, then it does so regardless of whether anyone can find, touch, or taste it, and even if nobody exists. According to your proposition, nothing existed until there was someone to find, touch or taste it, at which point its existence was caused. Now I do not believe that you actually hold such an opinion, because it would lead to quite absurd consequences, but it is also why I reject your claim.

Besides, if heaven exists, then everyone has a common method of experiecing it, by a fate which will eventually come to us all.
 

reason

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And your idea is flawed for this reason: The Universe will Die in future, Heat death from an expanding Universe has huge implications against the existence of heaven.
Perhaps heaven will "die" with everything else, or perhaps what will "die" is not everything, and heaven will be spared.
 

Totenkindly

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... Considering God's track record in the Christian bible, I think I'd prefer Hell.

When people say things like this, I have to laugh.

I mean, honestly, I suppose you're just trying to say you "don't like the Christian God."
Which is fine.
I just laugh when people say they'd rather "be in hell."

Have you ever been burned?
Ever been tortured?
Ever been dipped in molten lead?

Going by the fundamentalist views of hell, well, an eternity of pain would be a pretty awful thing.

I have enough trouble lasting a week or so where I have a canker sore in my mouth; now imagine your whole body being covered in canker sores, then being dunked in salt... and it only gets worse from there.

I guarantee any of us would be begging for mercy and would be willing to "take our chances with God" rather than spending an eternity in Hell, if it's all about pain. When people are in pain, they'll do ANYTHING to get out of it after a long enough period of time.

Remember, I'm positing a mostly Deistic sort of God. ...

I think I was just pointing out that many of your comments seemed to contain assumptions, that's all, rather than following conclusively.

(Sorry, my brain's a little fuzzy right now, I took what felt like about four gallons of novacaine to my face over lunch so the dentist could torture me... the creep!)
 

disregard

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Dostoevsky, speaking through his character Ivan in The Brothers Karamazov, argued that without immortality (in other words, without God) there is no morality. That that in the natural, material world of the mortal being there is no motivation to love one's neighbor or to avoid harming or exploiting one's neighbor in the pursuit of self-gratification.

(An assertion I disagree with.)
 

Totenkindly

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Dostoevsky, speaking through his character Ivan in The Brothers Karamazov, argued that without immortality (in other words, without God) there is no morality. That that in the natural, material world of the mortal being there is no motivation to love one's neighbor or to avoid harming or exploiting one's neighbor in the pursuit of self-gratification.

(An assertion I disagree with.)

There might be morality without immortality, I suppose...

...but then does it matter at all over the long-term?
 

disregard

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Without immortality, moral deeds (such as in the name of liberty, equality, fraternity, etc) may certainly matter to the individual carrying them out if they are grounded in love for your fellow human being (which is satisfying in itself and does not require a reward) and not in goodness for the sake of being good.
 

Lucifer

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No, but then neither does something exist because 'everyone following the same pattern can find, touch, or taste it.' If something exists, then it does so regardless of whether anyone can find, touch, or taste it, and even if nobody exists. According to your proposition, nothing existed until there was someone to find, touch or taste it, at which point its existence was caused. Now I do not believe that you actually hold such an opinion, because it would lead to quite absurd consequences, but it is also why I reject your claim.

Yet again you disappoint. Something exists because there is reason to believe it does. People believed that the Sun was a God because it was a simple answer and easy to believe because there was no proof to the contrary. But after the scienentific discoveries we have found, the evidence points to the contrary. It doesn't mean God doesn't exist it means there is no reason to believe it does. Hence anything you say is pure feeling or belief with no real background.

Besides, if heaven exists, then everyone has a common method of experiecing it, by a fate which will eventually come to us all.

"Eventually" is the problem. It is quite convienent how only dead people can experience heaven, and so there is no way for the living to be aware of such a place and yet somehow people are. Suspicious in the least.

So although this blind faith in believeing this bizarre "eventually" is really cute, and although I do aknowledge that there is no definite no about God, your jumping straight to yes instead of accepting facts is simply baffling.
 

Venom

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Heaven, if it exists, is part of the universe, albeit somewhat removed from everything else. We transcend our experience daily with our expectations, theories and assumptions--ordinary life would be impossible for a strict empiricist. If Heaven exists, even though beyond our experience, like the weather on Neptune, we can experience it through our imagination, and deduce it from our theories. Of course, our conjectures about heaven may be mistaken, but then they could also be true, and if they are true, then we have succeeded in describing the universe correctly. Very much the same is true for the astronomer who describes the weather on Neptune.

I don't?

No, but then neither does something exist because 'everyone following the same pattern can find, touch, or taste it.' If something exists, then it does so regardless of whether anyone can find, touch, or taste it, and even if nobody exists. According to your proposition, nothing existed until there was someone to find, touch or taste it, at which point its existence was caused. Now I do not believe that you actually hold such an opinion, because it would lead to quite absurd consequences, but it is also why I reject your claim.

Besides, if heaven exists, then everyone has a common method of experiecing it, by a fate which will eventually come to us all.

by god i think he's lost it. ;) (totally kidding with the hostility, this is not a hostile post :hug:)

It may sound fun philosophically to simply say, "well just because you cant touch it, see it etc, doesn't mean there isnt an invisible ice cream truck on mars".

Yes i totally 100% see your point that stuff existed before we were here to observe it. However, there is a sense of object permanence for humans that makes this more practical than simply invoking the invisible ice cream truck on mars. We SEE neptune, and thus have a reason to revise our world view and can establish that yes, Neptune is probably there whether we are observing it or not. If no one remembers it tomorrow, it is still there affecting time and space with its gravity/mass. However, if we adhere to your guidelines, then i guess Im not being irrational to hang onto my Martian ice cream truck, or to decide that there could be 100 invisible Neptunes all hanging around Neptune....

you are dangerously close to sounding like that Phillip whats his name with his wedge of truth who totally rejects naturalism...and then decides to build his world view of truths "on the word"....

Bertrand Russell said:
"The real question is: Is there anything we can think of which, by the mere fact that we think of it, is shown to exist outside of thought? Every philosopher would LIKE to say yes, because a philosopher's job is to find out things about the word by thinking rather than observing. If yes is the right answer, there is a bridge from pure thought to things. If not, not"

The guy from your sig! :happy2:
 

reason

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However, if we adhere to your guidelines, then i guess Im not being irrational to hang onto my Martian ice cream truck, or to decide that there could be 100 invisible Neptunes all hanging around Neptune...
Why would it be irrational?

Suppose that there is actually an invisible ice cream truck on Mars. Given this, the statement 'there exists an invisible ice cream truck on Mars' is true, and a person who believes that it is true is correct. Is such a person rational? It would seem peculiar to say that they are not, after all, they believe that there is an invisible ice cream truck on Mars, and there actually is. Would it be more rational to be incorrect? If, like Betrand Russell, you think so, then your's is a rationality with a strange relation to the truth.
 

reason

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Lucifer,

You write that 'something exists because there is reason to believe it does.' But do you really believe that? I suspect not. The existence of the sun, for example, is not contigent upon the reasons which people have to believe that it exists. The truth of the statement 'the sun exists' does not depend upon our investigations, that is, the sun exists before anyone anyone has a reason to believe that it exists, and even when there are no people and no reasons whatever. In other words, something which exists does even when nobody has any reason to suppose it does. The universe is not determined by our thoughts about it, but discovered (hopefully!).

"Eventually" is the problem. It is quite convienent how only dead people can experience heaven, and so there is no way for the living to be aware of such a place and yet somehow people are. Suspicious in the least. So although this blind faith in believeing this bizarre "eventually" is really cute, and although I do aknowledge that there is no definite no about God, your jumping straight to yes instead of accepting facts is simply baffling.
You can hurry the process along if you want. In any case, it's the only experiment which I can think of which might challenge the hypothesis that heaven exists. Meanwhile, the facts which you speak of are quite consistent with the notion that heaven exists, and therefore, can be accepted without consequence.
 

Lucifer

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It is an ongoing irony that your name is reason and yet you are looking for the complete opposite.

Let us say a man walks up to you and says there is an invisible ice cream truck on Mars.
At first you think the man mad.
You ask "How do you know?"
He replies "I know"
You say "Have you been to Mars?"
He says honestly "No"
You question "Do you have a picture?"
Shakes his head "No"
Finally you ask "What is your proof?"
He smiles "I know its there"

This is the problem I am having with this discussion, there is no reason there is a God and yet you vehemently defend it.
Lets say there is a ice cream truck on Mars, but the man doesn't actually know (such as the existence of heaven). He IS irrational, sinch the definition of rational is:
consistent with or based on or using reason; "rational behavior"; "a process of rational inference"; "rational thought"

Irrational behaviour defined as:contrary to or lacking in reason or logic.

Honestly give it up. I aknowledge I am not allknowing and I am logical. ut you are simply spouting falsehoods, you are leaping to the ice cream truck thingbecause it is the only thing you have.
And a symptom of irrational behaviour is emotional outbursts such as your less then subtle attack suggesting I kill myself to prove my theory. You are not "reason".
 

reason

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And a symptom of irrational behaviour is emotional outbursts such as your less then subtle attack suggesting I kill myself to prove my theory. You are not "reason".
Thank you for the advice. In future I will try and defend my position less vehemently, with fewer emotional outbursts.

In regard to the statement 'there exists an invisible ice cream truck on Mars', it seems to me no more rational to believe that it is false than that it is true. After all, its absence implies the existence of something else, that is, the empty place which it might otherwise occupy, and the same objections you make against a belief in the invisible ice cream truck can be brought against the belief in that empty space.

That said, with regard to invisible ice cream trucks (and orbiting teapots), the problem is fairly easily resolved without recourse to Russell's naive empiricism. Most of us do not believe the universe is structured in such a way that invisible ice cream trucks can exist, and if those beliefs are true, then there is no invisible ice cream truck on Mars. This result can easily be reached without the difficulties which your approach generates.

This is the problem I am having with this discussion, there is no reason there is a God and yet you vehemently defend it.
Actually, I have been defending (if you can call it that) the idea of heaven, not God. It seems to me that both can exist independently, and therefore, need not be considered as a package. In any case, I can "defend" the notion of God if you want, since, as an atheist, I am, perhaps, in a surprisingly good position to do so.
 

Lucifer

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Thank you for the advice. In future I will try and defend my position less vehemently, with fewer emotional outbursts.

In regard to the statement 'there exists an invisible ice cream truck on Mars', it seems to me no more rational to believe that it is false than that it is true. After all, its absence implies the existence of something else, that is, the empty place which it might otherwise occupy, and the same objections you make against a belief in the invisible ice cream truck can be brought against the belief in that empty space.

That said, with regard to invisible ice cream trucks (and orbiting teapots), the problem is fairly easily resolved without recourse to Russell's naive empiricism. Most of us do not believe the universe is structured in such a way that invisible ice cream trucks can exist, and if those beliefs are true, then there is no invisible ice cream truck on Mars. This result can easily be reached without the difficulties which your approach generates.

Actually, I have been defending (if you can call it that) the idea of heaven, not God. It seems to me that both can exist independently, and therefore, need not be considered as a package. In any case, I can "defend" the notion of God if you want, since, as an atheist, I am, perhaps, in a surprisingly good position to do so.

You are right, I did mislabel the conversation. I do not believe in either and so they both equally don't exist to me so I substitute and use them as one principle.
In response to the criticism about the analogy, you could use god and the big bang theory instead. If some man says he knows god exists, this seems false compared to the fact that the big bang theory would exist in its place.
And for heaven, the fact that it does not exist and there is nothing in its place outweighs the reason to believe there is something there.
To believe something is there it must outweigh the belief somthing does not. Propose your reasons it does directly.
Also your sarcasm is boing, just don't respond if thats all you have, just trying to insult my intelligence to bring me down to your "reasoning".
 

Aerithria

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When people say things like this, I have to laugh.

I mean, honestly, I suppose you're just trying to say you "don't like the Christian God."
Which is fine.
I just laugh when people say they'd rather "be in hell."

Have you ever been burned?
Ever been tortured?
Ever been dipped in molten lead?

Going by the fundamentalist views of hell, well, an eternity of pain would be a pretty awful thing.

I have enough trouble lasting a week or so where I have a canker sore in my mouth; now imagine your whole body being covered in canker sores, then being dunked in salt... and it only gets worse from there.

I guarantee any of us would be begging for mercy and would be willing to "take our chances with God" rather than spending an eternity in Hell, if it's all about pain. When people are in pain, they'll do ANYTHING to get out of it after a long enough period of time.
Once again, Hell is never really shown from any other perspective than God's. God says it's bad, so therefore it's bad. I'm not going by the book on this one. I can't accept a view of Hell told from the perspective of someone who hates their leader. As for Satan, it's hard to believe that the guy who brought us knowledge is stupid enough to be duped into doing God's dirty work for him and moronic enough that he'd enjoy the same tortures over and over for all of eternity. Isn't a couple of millenia's worth of fire and brimstone more than enough by now?

And no, I don't like the Christian God, but that isn't why I wouldn't want to be in Heaven. God's actions seem to insanely... well, insane, that I wouldn't really want to know what his idea of perfection is. Even if Hell is actually the boring fire-and-brimstone bit, I'd prefer that kind of unbearable surface pain to the prospect of having no free will, which I still believe is the only way that Heaven can work without our humanity corrupting the place. After all, the worst kind of pain isn't physical.
 

Totenkindly

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Once again, Hell is never really shown from any other perspective than God's. God says it's bad, so therefore it's bad. I'm not going by the book on this one. I can't accept a view of Hell told from the perspective of someone who hates their leader. As for Satan, it's hard to believe that the guy who brought us knowledge is stupid enough to be duped into doing God's dirty work for him and moronic enough that he'd enjoy the same tortures over and over for all of eternity. Isn't a couple of millenia's worth of fire and brimstone more than enough by now?

I wasn't referring to that in my comments, this is a different issue.

Although if you're going to expand in this direction with your comments, then you should understand that there are many different branches of Christianity and some of them would agree with your reasoning and don't believe what you seem to be ascribing to "general Christianity."

And no, I don't like the Christian God, but that isn't why I wouldn't want to be in Heaven. God's actions seem to insanely... well, insane, that I wouldn't really want to know what his idea of perfection is.

Again.

Even if Hell is actually the boring fire-and-brimstone bit, I'd prefer that kind of unbearable surface pain

And I seriously doubt that.
(Which was my original point.)

I don't really care what we each claim to believe or what our ideals are, if you're thrown into a situation where you are suffering the worst agonizing pain all over your body possible, you are going to want to DIE just so the pain will end.

Talk to some full-body burn victims about what pain is.
And that would be NOTHING.

And if you know the pain won't end?
Ever?
Let's not even go there.

Maybe you are just using hyperbole to stress how much you hate your version of the Christian God here? I'm approach this straight-forwardly: If hell is the place of punishment you seem to be allowing, with fire and brimstone, you are NOT going to want to be there because of the pain factor.

...the prospect of having no free will, which I still believe is the only way that Heaven can work without our humanity corrupting the place. After all, the worst kind of pain isn't physical.

Maybe heaven isn't (nor ever was) what you're making it out to be here.

If you want my actual view in accordance with "Christian thought":

I think our humanity is what would make heaven work.
Because Christians are not "perfect" people.
They're supposed to be people who have learned to love each other despite NOT being perfect.
That's the secret.

And that's why heaven could work.
Because the people who are there are committed to learning the lesson.
They know how to forgive.
And humble enough to know when to forgive, as well as when to beg forgiveness.
They know what they don't know.
They know their failings.
And they aren't ashamed to be themselves.
Or to let others be themselves.

And the people who won't be bothered with that sort of thing would rather not be there, it would be Hell to them -- hence, they remove themselves.
 
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