Talk:Existence of God

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Contents 1 Archive 2 Problems, please fix 3 Transcendental argument 4 What About Buddhism? 5 Deism 6 An Argument From Evil 7 wonderfully constructed article 8 Mathematical Argument 9 Flawed Premise 10 No list of proofs/disproofs? 11 Christian God only? 12 Euthyphro's dilemma 13 intelligent design 14 Causility VS. the existence of a God 15 Pascal's Wager 16 Chad's epistomological concerns 16.1 Arguments for the possibility of the non-existence of God 16.2 Probability? 17 William Hatcher's proof? 18 Intro tweaks 19 Only way to prove it. 20 Does God Exist? 21 I have a question

[edit] Archive

• /Archive 1
• /Archive 2

[edit] Problems, please fix

This is roughly half the problems I found with the articile, it desperately needs some warning signs and a peer review.

The first paragraph doesn’t make sense, to assess the “validity of any argument” for anything we need to assess it’s characteristics, this is not “one way” of assessing the validity of arguments for the existence of god, it is a necessary competent of any assessment.

The second paragraph is original research or needs a citation.

The whole first section is confusingly written. The discussion of the use theory of meaning is superfluous.

The discussion of falsifiability is just left dangling, the excessive equation of such arguments with the philosophy of Karl Popper are likely to give a slanted view.

The claim that fine tuning arguments are based on a shrinking pool is POV. The claim that ID arguments depend on fine tuning is factually incorrect, mostly they appeal to biology, not cosmology.

The epistemology section, It's POV. The author should keep his idiosyncratic opinions about a-posteroi knowledge and relativism to himself or cite them as opinions of various philosophers. Not everyone believes that “Strictly speaking A posteriori knowledge is impossible”. Except for skeptics I don’t think any philosopher holds this. I don’t understand why he posted a link to relativism just after this, I can see several possible conceptual links, but none of these are stated or explained in the text. The claim that knowledge is belief plus justification misses the third element of the traditional triad account of knowledge, truth. The link to the sociology of knowledge article is not really relevant in this context. “Knowledge in the sense of understanding or truth” sticks out as a particularly odd quote from this section.

“Knowledge can also be described as a psychological state, since in a strict sense there can never be a posteriori knowledge proper.” As I have said earlier the claim about there being no a posteriori knowledge is a little odd to say the least. Also the link between the rejection of A posteriori knowledge and describing knowledge as a psychological state is not made clear and appears to be original research. The three questions given at the end are very weird, ambiguous and confusing. Take “does subjective experience count as evidence for objective reality” that depends on the definitions you give, in one sense all experience is “subjective” ( i.e it is experience which is experienced by a subject, a person an animal etc). The claim that different definitions of truth is a major source of conflict in the debate is not warranted by the literature, wherein philosophers atheist and theist almost always share the same conception of truth, the claim that different definitions of knowledge are responsible for the confusions is perhaps half right, debates about the meaning of knowledge and religious epistemology fill the literature however the basic idea that ( subtleties surrounding the Gettier problem put aside for a moment) that knowledge is true, justified, belief is basically accepted. Overall this section is perhaps most in need of a cleanup, not much is salvagble.

The definition given of Metaphysical arguments for the existence of god is weird, it claims that such arguments are meant to be deductively valid. One of the arguments the author lists in this section, the cosmological argument, are sometimes given as inductive arguments ( Richard Swinburne is one of the primary defenders of this approach). I’ve never seen the “Pantheistic argument” before, but that might just be my ignorance. The categories basically seem made up and arbitrary.

The empirical arguments section is weird, moral arguments for the existence of god are categorically not empirical and neither are the versions of the transcendental argument which I have seen.

The subjective arguments section is very poor, an attempt to argue from miracles is not a “subjective” argument as far as I can tell, but because no statement of what the author means by subjective ( one of the English languages most ambiguous words) is here given I wouldn’t know. All the definitions of subjective in this context I can think of either render the list either inaccurate or POV ( perhaps for example the author thinks that subjective refers to experiential arguments, arguments from religious experiences, in which case the list is inaccurate, or perhaps he means subjective in the epistemologically derogatory sense, in which case the list is POV.)

The source quoted in the first section of empirical arguments against the existence of god is confused. Deism isn’t fuzzily defined under any standard definitions of fuzzy. The text seems to present a false dilemma between creationist theistic belief and deism. The source cannot be considered reliable

It’s hard to see that Sartre’s existenalist rejection of the existence of god on the grounds that man creates his own nature is an inductive argument, it’s hard to classify but if anything it’s a deductive argument.

The no reason argument is poorly explained.

The deductive arguments section includes “The counter argument against the cosmological argument” this is not an argument against the existence of god, Christians, even those who believe the existence of god can be rationally demonstrated, might use it.

To summarize, this article is filled with inaccuracies, irrelevancies, poor use of categories, original research, points of view, overconfident interjections, poor word selection, undefined terms which appear to have an idiosyncratic meaning and a tendency to attempt to bring in major philosophers when it only confuses the discussion.

Dear 58.105.65.186, thanks for your insightful comments. Feel free to be bold and edit the article to help remove these problems. (By the way, on talk pages like this, please sign your posts with four tildes, which puts your username or IP and a date stamp after your post; this makes it much easier to follow arguments. Also, new sections normally go at the bottom of the page.) - Mglg 00:03, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Transcendental argument

This section is poorly explained. Also it is unclear why transcendental arguments are catergorized as emprical, most, probably all, aren't.

[edit] What About Buddhism?

In this entire article arguing the existence or non-existence of God, you don't mention the Buddhist perspective, not even as a one line blurb somewhere around agnosticism. The Buddha offered a pretty unique perspective on things for his time (or our time for that matter). He said that yeah there is an un-born creator, but don't even start to talk about that, that has nothing to do with the path to happiness. He gave a parable about a man who had been struck with a poison arrow. If this man in search for help found a surgeon that could remove the arrow, but before allowing it to be removed said, "I will not allow you to remove this arrow until you tell me, who shot the arrow, what kind of person he is, (or is it a she), why was the arrow shot, what type of poison was used, and what type of bow was it was fired with". By the time all of those questions are answered that man would surely die. That’s just about how futile our search for God and meaning are, so just give it up and find happiness. Perhaps the same idea the Buddha had, has been communicated by different philosophers but The Buddha certainly deserves at least a tiny mention in all this, if for nothing else other than starting an organised religion without acknowledging a certain god as the creator. (I can accept if for that reason you would call Buddhism a philosophy, but in my experience philosophy is perhaps too narrow a word for Buddhism, and religion is too broad a word). But now I've gone off on a crazy Buddhism tangent, and the intial reason for my comment has been lost, so I'll restate: At least think about throwing in a bit of Buddhism into this existence of God argument.

~Max Lupo~

Yeah, you brought up a very good point. I don't know anything about this though. One of the other editors might, or if you're impatient, you could add something in yourself - this is a wiki. WP:BB :) Infinity0 ^talk 13:23, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I considered adding something similar, but let me give you the reasons I didn't: First of all, the relationship between Buddhism and God/gods is quite complex -- it probably deserves an article in itself (and, in fact, has been the subject of even the subject (or a major subject) of several books. That said, the Buddha (according to the Pali canon) said nothing about a creator deity at all: he neither affirmed nor denied it (in the specific passage Max Lupo has in mind, he was asked about the start of samsara, and refused to answer). That said, devas and asuras are a part of Buddhist cosmology (and the samsaric cycle). Since this page seems to be arguments for or against the existence of God/gods, I don't think this is quite the appropriate page to add something about the Buddhist view of gods. Perhaps a link should be added to God in Buddhism? Ig0774 20:34, 22 February 2006 (UTC). PS added link.

It should be remembered that there is not A buddhist perspective on the question of God/s' existence.

what HINDUISM? they have many deities?Angelofdeath275 21:56, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

More importantly, do they have any arguments for or against their existence? crazyeddie 20:19, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deism

I think we could add a blurb and link on deism, probably to the theism section. I think it's a legitimate subset of theism.

Also I might take issue with the statement in the section on agnosticism that suggests an automatic skepticism toward religious arguments. As an example, I offer myself: I don't consider myself wholly agnostic, but I don't really have anything against religious arguments, and I'm certainly not biased against them or automatically skeptical of them (I'm pretty much non-practicing, but I still consider myself a theist). Does anyone else think this may be worth re-wording? Othersider 06:27, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with both points. Deism certainly played an important part in the arguments advanced for the existence of God. As for the Agnosticism thing, I'm not sure it actually says that agnostics are necessarily skeptical of religious arguments, but it is poorly worded. Thanks for bringing it up. Ig0774 06:53, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] An Argument From Evil

I think some of David Hume's arguments regarding a deity's existence would be a helpful addition to some of the arguments made in this article. In Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion he argues through the persona of Philo that it is not merely the truth of evil, but more the enormous amount of evil in the world that makes it doubtful whether or not a deity exists. Hume also argues that there is more evil than good, making the harmonizing of a belief in the existence of a God who is in control of everything. Hume appears to argue that the misery people go through is what causes them to constantly be looking forward to the future, when they hope their situation might improve. The same tendency that causes people to look forward to a better future causes them to worship, sacrifice, and pray toward some higher power than themselves. In a way people are convincing themselves that they truly believe in some higher being which can deliver them, but in reality are only believing or desiring a means of release from their despair. An all-powerful higher being, who would be capable of delivering them, would be the best possible means in answering the problem of their situation. Hume argues that what drives people to believe what they do about religion is that they are "not satisfied with life" and they are "afraid of death." Though I do not agree with Hume's conclusion on God's existence I thought his reasoning for not believing in a deity's existence was very thought provoking. Mancalf

It's what's proposed to be included in Problem of evil. User:Kenosis said he'll add something on Hume sometime, in the "history" section. -- infinity0 00:20, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

If you want, add a paragraph in this article to:

The problem of evil (or theodicy) in general, and the logical and evidential arguments from evil in particular contest the existence of a god who is both omnipotent and omnibenevolent by arguing that such a god would not permit the existence of perceivable evil or suffering, which can easily be shown to exist. WAS 4.250 00:37, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

If you want, add a subsection at Problem of evil. WAS 4.250 00:37, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

So in a way it can be said that for some it becomes a Self-fulfilling prophecy? I believe we also need to find a way to seperate dogmatic religion from this as well, as often it isn't the belief in a god which ends up being discussed but the religious institution who is trying to maintain its own base of power which interjects and causes confusion on the subject. As an example, what better way to organise a structure of belief than to present a prize (entry to heaven), offer a path to reaching that prize (following their religion), indicate that the prize is highly desired above everything else (say how wonderful it is thre) and then specifically deny any means of circumventing getting there (suicide denies you the prize). Concepts of heaven, what must be done to get there, what rituals must be followed, actions taken, and "rules" for governing admission or expulsion are all based purely in dogma and have nothing at all to do with the belief in a deity. One can have belief without having dogma, yet one cannot have dogma without the belief. Enigmatical 04:23, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

As to the existance of both a universe with evil and God's creation of it, it has traditionally been explained as the need to maintain 'free-will'. An alternative argument might be that the universe is a kind of open 'experiment' that could only be conducted if the possibility of evil could occur. Moreover, if this universe was 'inferered with' ie to stop evil from occuring, (ie God's intervention), this would interfere with the experimental purpose of the universe. Therefore, not only is the possibility of evil occurring a part of the fabric of the universe's existance, but also the non-interferance of such 'evil'. This argument is supported by what we know of science, and partly explains the existance of evil in a universe created by God. Furthermore, this explanation is entirely consistent with the cosmological argument, although I haven;t read too many palces which advocate the 'experiment model of the universe'.Posted by Roger McEvilly

In belief systems with many human like gods, the gods themselves were both good and evil like humans. In ancient Hebrew thought, the Hebrew God was one of many gods - this evolved into belief in one all powerful God who lied (read about Moses) and killed (the flood) and toyed with human lives (Job) - this evolved into belief in a world divided into forces of Good versus forces of Evil (a few hundred BC to a few hundred AD) which is when the issue of "an all good God" was created causing the need for a theological solution to the latest cultural belief structures. Throw in non-Western beliefs and Modern beliefs and it really gets interesting. WAS 4.250 18:07, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

So where are you getting this info from? The dates are the most suspect, ±2 centuries from birth of Christianity? Even most minimalists give an earlier date. Can you please provide some sources for this "evolution" and its timeline?

Also, in terms of evil, how do we define evil vs. good?

Thanks.Omegarad 07:10, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] wonderfully constructed article

This is turning into a wonderfully constructed article. keep it up. Just always balance it out. - 24.197.141.33

Thanks. Please help out in whatever way you can. WAS 4.250 15:59, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathematical Argument

Mathematical argument redirects to Parameter. Which is not the meaning that is being referred to in this article. Either we need a disambiguation page or a different link on this page. Matt73 13:27, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I deleted the sentence because it is in a list of arguments that God exists in reality, like trees, not exists as a concept, like zero. WAS 4.250 15:12, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

POV, mathematical Platonism is very popular, I for one think that zero does not exist "as a concept". Which sentence are you refering to.

Maybe, but it isn't a formalised argument for the existence of God. It's just a position amongst mathematicians AFAIK which isn't supported by a proper argument. -- infinity0 14:12, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

It's more a philosophical postion than a mathematical one and I'm only responding to WAS and his reason for deleting "the sentence" whatever that might be.

[edit] Flawed Premise

I am not sure exactly where such things should go, but if we are talking about defining exactly what god is and thus defining what proof or knowledge is, we should also point out the following 2 indesputable facts:

1. All of this discussion is based from a humanistic point of view, one in which all humans are born (ie have a beginning), live, and die (ie have an ending). The ability for the human psyche to comprehend anything beyond a finite quantity (ie all of eternity, forever, infinite, omniscient, omnipotent, etc) is thus limited due to the point of view of the philosopher. This limited understanding would lead one to believe that there must have been a creator simply because we all have creators (our parents)... thus we have a flawed premise that just as we were created, so too must the universe. Anything which uses this premise as the basis for validation should be tempered with the understanding that there is no must involved, only that it holds true to a finitely humanistic point of view

1. Use of personal experience to determine existence (ie "God spoke to me" or "I felt Gods presence"). While I am sure people are 100% completely convinced that this is true and thus by their own belief (which noone else can deny conclusively) is used as the premise for existance... it does not behaviourally exhibit any difference to someone who falsely believes in something they have personally experienced. As we are talking about the human mind, and that mind is known for a propensity to deny and modify its own "facts" for purposes of protection, any use of this premise should be tempered with the understanding that a personal experience (ie subjective) does not equate to anyone else other than that one person (ie objective). If a person swears with 100% conviction they saw a UFO we call them crazy, but if a person swears with 100% conviction they had a personal experience of God we grant them a different judgement. When the subject dictates the type of response, despite both having the same quantity and quality of validation it does indicate that the subject itself inherantly alters the point of view.

Just thought it worth noting. Enigmatical 04:17, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No list of proofs/disproofs?

Is there not an article listing historic arguments for/against the existence of a higher power? I came across a supposed "strong argument" while reading through the 1728 Cyclopaedia (which pre-dates Darwin):

The Branches of Trees are observ'd, almost constantly, to shoot from the Trunk at an Angle of 45 Degrees : The Reason is, that the whole Spreading being generally confin'd within an Angle of 90 Degrees, as the most becoming and useful disposition ; that space could not be well fill'd up any other way, than by forming all the Intersections which the Shoots and Branches make, with Angles of 45 Degrees only. A strong Argument, that the Plastick Capacities of Matter, are under the Guidance of a wise Being.

If we don't have a list, I think it would be an interesting addition, especially with respect to the historic arguments for a higher being, and which ones have been disproven as a result of advances in understanding, and which ones remain unresolved, etc. --BRIAN0918 22:22, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I would urge caution against such a list. This could open the floodgates for thousands of "Science hasn't yet to fully explain the evolution of the eye / Bumblebee flight / whatever - therefor god MUST have designed them!" listings from evangelicals, all well sourced from the various evangelical magazines. Academically, this would turn the article into a laughing stock and detract from the article's philosophical nature. Canderra 23:19, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Please note that we are talking about historical (ie: notable) arguments, not the opinions of random people, and certainly not proofs. So, it wouldn't open the floodgates. We could even restrict it to ancient/pre-modern arguments, or arguments within historic books/documents. --BRIAN0918 00:08, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I would have to agree here. For every proof/disproof, a person who comes from the opposing side of the argument would say that they see something completely different in the same "data". Take the above example. That the Angle is 45 degrees only suggests to them that it shows guidance of a wise being... where as to a scientist it simply shows the natural laws of physics where all forms of energy seek to use the least amount of energy to maintain its form and 45 degrees is this very configuration. We would end up going back and forth forever. Quite frankly, I think the whole discussion about the existence of god is a subjective one and is most definately not an objective one. With that being the case there will never be a resolution as a person is not about to change their subjective opinion on something through any means of proof, fact, data or anything else. Its a matter of personal preference, not right and wrong. Enigmatical 23:53, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not talking about making a debate page. I am talking about historical (ie: notable) arguments, not the opinions of random people. It could even be restricted in certain ways, as I mentioned in a reply above. While it is true that certain counterarguments don't address more fundamental arguments, nor possible counter-counterarguments, that is not the point of a counterargument. --BRIAN0918 00:08, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Can you provide an example to illustrate your point. To my knowledge, there doesn't exist an historical argument which has ever been disproved. While those who disprove it believe it has, those who have the subjective opposing view believe it didn't go far enough to disprove anything. Unless of course you are talking about incredibly simplistic things like "God is the sun"... but some may argue even that cannot be disproved because we have yet to travel there and know for sure that it is what we think it is. Enigmatical 00:44, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Again, as I said, we are talking about arguments, not proofs. Such arguments can never be proven/disproven. If one person says "the Bible says X", while another person says "science shows Y", Y may be a counterargument against X, but believers of X might posit a counter-counteragument Z. The point of the article would be to list these back-and-forths arguments; of course, we would only include those arguments which are sufficiently notable, as we would with any other list on Wikipedia. --BRIAN0918 01:54, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

But that is my point. What you found is something you are claiming is an argument for the existence of God, yet I read that very same piece of text as being a very strong argument against the existence of God and yet it is the very same argument. Some see design as proof, while others see design as being natural and that it is only a humanistic condition to believe that any kind of structure must have come from a divine source. So how are we to list arguments for/against when we cannot even agree which is for and which is against? Its subjective, not objective. Enigmatical 02:53, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

We don't do original research. Obviously, if we are taking arguments from historical texts, the person writing the argument is going to specify whether he means it is for/against the existence of God. Whether or not you agree with that is entirely unimportant. We document; we don't interpret. --BRIAN0918 17:10, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Why not start the list here, we can look at what has been found and decide if its feasible. Enigmatical 06:12, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Christian God only?

At a quick glance this entire (otherwise great) article seems to be written from the perspective there is only one divine concept worth discussing: the (Judeo-)Christian "God". Little acknowledgement is made of of all other religions. Such Eurocentricity made some sense centuries ago when many of these arguments were first formulated, at a time when culture (to Europeans) meant European culture; it makes considerably less sense for a 21st century global encyclopedia. It is fine for the article to discuss only the existence or nonexistence of the Christian god, if that is what the it intends to cover. But in that case there absolutely needs to be a sentence very early on (I'd say one of the two or three first sentences) to point out that that is all the article intends to cover. Alternatively, the article might want to direct itself to a broader question of the existence of "a deity or deities", "any supernatural forces", or similar, but that may distract from the clean structure of the article, since most of its source material is indeed from the European/Christian tradition. I would suggest the first option, to specify early on what concept(s) the article means to cover. Maybe even modify the title? - Mglg 22:03, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

After a slightly less quick glance I see that the problem isn't quite as severe as I first thought, given what's in the "What is God?" section. Sorry for the hasty comment. But even though that section acknowledges some diversity in divine concepts across religions, the "Arguments for the existence of God" section and most of the rest of the article is still written from a "God means the Christan god" perspective. There still needs to be at least some mention of this bias. Mglg 22:38, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Euthyphro's dilemma

Just wondering why Euthyphro's dilemma is absent from this page.

Euthyphro's dilemma has little to do with the existence of God. At most, it might be useful as a counterargument to Argument from morality. crazyeddie 23:26, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] intelligent design

How is it possible for the scientific community to challenge intelligent design? I mean, they have to believe in design at least. Even Richard Dawkins does. Scorpionman 15:59, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

1) This isn't the place for such a discussion. 2) I would suspect that the problem is with intelligent design. Evolution can give rise to organisms that appear to be "designed," but evolution itself is not intelligent - it lacks intentional stance, a prequisite of intelligence. crazyeddie 23:29, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Causility VS. the existence of a God

So how is the concept of causility or "cause and effect" more justifiable than the existence of God? Both cannot be empirically tested; you can not "experience" both with your five senses. I understand that one concept can be "believed in more" than the other; for example, you COULD say that you believe in cause and effect more than you believe in the existence of God. But you can't say, from an empiricist point of view; that you KNOW casualty or God exists. So what I'm asking is how can scientists (and empiricists) believe in the concept of "cause and effect" more than they believe in the existence of God? How is causility more justified (and therefore, more readily "assumeable") than the existence of God? You can't say you know they both exist according to Hume, if you are an empiricisst, but why would anyone be an atheist (not believe in God), but assume that causility exist? 165.196.139.24 21:06, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, first off, what is causality? IIRC, it means that one event must follow another by necessity. "Necessary" truths, in philosophical jargon, means that the truth is required to be true in all possible universes - it is impossible for this truth to be wrong in any logically consistent system. In contrast, there are "contigent" truths which are true in this particular universe, but it is possible that there are universes where this truth doesn't hold. So, in other words, if event B absolutely has to happen if event A happens, then we say that event A causes event B.

IIRC, Hume tied the notion of causality to the Principle of the Uniformity of Nature, which roughly states that, given a similar situation, you are going to have similar results. If we run an experiment and get different results, we start looking for the different inputs to the experiment that caused the divergence in results.

Hume pointed out that the Principle of the Uniformity of Nature lacks justification, for reasons too complicated to get into here. His positive view states that we come up with it out of habit - seeing many similar "experiments" yielding similar results. If he were around today, he might say that we evolved an instict for this principle, because it works in general. After all, if the PUN isn't true, then there is no reason not to play in traffic, because being hit by a car might not necessarily result in death and/or severe pain.

Interestingly enough, we seem to have empirical evidence that the PUN is not true in all cases - see quantum indeterminacy. Even if the environments (including the internal environments) of two different radioactively unstable nucleus are exactly the same, it is not given that they will emit radiation at the same time. We can only give probablistic predictions of such an experiment. There are also strong theoritical reasons to believe that such indeterminacy is fundamental, and not just an artifact of our ignorance, but how things are in reality. The PUN, and by extension deterministic causality, appears to be not entirely true at sub-atomic levels.

So, causality doesn't exist in any absolute sense. Fun, hun? But it works well enough in our everyday world, and without, there doesn't seem to be any reason not to run down the street naked and screaming, since there is no way of (absolutely) predicting the consequences. It might be that some scientists believe in causality, but that's because they're ignorant, unlike us philosophers :-) That and they might be sticking their fingers in their ears and going "LA-LA-LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" However, I'm not sure that the fact that causality isn't true helps your case for arguing that God exits. If causality isn't absolute, then not every event requires a cause, so there is no need for a First Cause. Of course, if God is an "uncaused cause," then God Himself would be a counterexample proving that causality is bunk. Either way, the Cosmological Argument simply won't hold water. It is possible that God exists, of course, baring any convincing arguments from the Strong Atheists, but this Weak Atheist believes that the possibility is remote. crazyeddie 00:03, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pascal's Wager

While this may border more on the philosophical and psychological sides than the theological side (which this article does a great job explaining), I feel that it is missing a reasons for/against an individual person believing in God or a Supreme Being. I think that the entire section, or at least its prototype, can be molded around Pascal's Wager and Paschal's Flaw, as well as more conventional thought processes as the inherent inborn need find the truth to our existence, devoting time to what is accordingly important to either the betterment of the human species and our knowledge of science or our own personal beliefs (dictated by ones belief against or in God), etc. The section shouldn't be too long, but should probably passingly mention Voltaire, C.S. Lewis and/or Bertrand Russell. --Lord Ramco 19:39, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chad's epistomological concerns

[edit] Arguments for the possibility of the non-existence of God

It seems to me that non of the arguments against the existence of God actually argue against God's existence. Rather they are arguments for the possibility of reality's existence without a need for God. Can some actual arguments against God's existence be provided? Or is that not really possible?

--chad 10:40, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

The aruments are the same for invisible unicorns. WAS 4.250 18:28, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Probability?

I noticed that in this article often probability is used in arguments either directly or indirectly (e.g. Occam's razor). But how can one really ask the question "how probable is the existence of God?" I think not. The only way to answer such a question is if we could somehow say "of the 1 million realities in existence, three of them were created by a God. So the probability of God's existence in our reality is extremely low (0.0003% chance)." We can't say anything about probability here.

--chad 10:53, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

The aruments are the same for invisible unicorns. WAS 4.250 18:28, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] William Hatcher's proof?

I have added an entry William Hatcher's proof in the For part of the article and provided a link. I am unsure whether we can provide external link in the article itself or should use footnotes instead; if anyone wishes to edit it, please do. Also, the "proof" itself is of decent length, but not too long; should the whole proof be presented in the article, or should it have its own article? Allan Lee 23:15, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Articles on William Hatcher, on his books(s), and on his theory should all exist. I suspect his theory will belong in a category of theories that we already have an article on and mention of his theory can also go there. Probably mention doesn't belong in this article, but write the article on the theory or the book descibing the theory and let's see then. Meanwhile I have noticed that the intro is too short and needs to adequately summarize the article. Maybe I'll get around to that. WAS 4.250 12:08, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

His article already exists, but only touches on his proof briefly. I do not see an article for his proof specifically, and I went through all the other articles of "For" arguements but do not see one that fits his arguement. I mean, there's not even a catagory of "Deductive" before. Perhaps I'll create a main article, then add a brief description here to link to that. Allan Lee 18:02, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Ok I did some searches, and his proof has not yet been documented in Wikipedia at all. I'll add an article, then add a new entry here afterwards. Allan Lee 18:24, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Intro tweaks

I removed "clearly logically impossible" to "apparently self-contradictory" because this is something of a disputed question. I removed "Epistemological problems such as the "problem of the supernatural" cause no end to the misunderstandings involved in arguments for and against the existence of God" because it seems rather odd to single out this as a point of confusion, when there are plenty of complex philosophical discussed on this page. Also, it is unreferenced. -- Beland 20:28, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Only way to prove it.

I don't agree with arguing over the exsistence of God. The only way to prove he does exsist is if we of course die. Anker99 00:37, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

That is Eschatological verification. 194.80.178.1 15:24, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Does God Exist?

True, there is a "problem of evil." Here there is a contrast. There are millions of millionaires and countless affulent people across the US and much of Europe. Then you have people who could live on five thousand dollars a year over in Third World countries. There is an imbalance in our world. What would benevolence be if we all were equal? It would put one above another. Picture if Hollywood emptied out its collective billions of dollars, the hoarding governments of this world thousands of tons of gold and the trillions and trillions of dollars they spend finding new ways to kill their enemies. Jesus once said,"What you have been given, you have been given to share." Are we doing this? And if we assume God exists, we assume all that He is said to be. And if we assume this, a "What if all of the Bible were true, if all the Cathecism of the Catholic Church said was true?" view, challenge me on my talk page. Find a contradiction. Please. Assume it is true and look for an "innocent until proven guilty."

Chris 21

This has nothing to do with the article. Try reading it. WAS 4.250 04:45, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I have a question

According to the laws of Conservation of Energy, energy cannot be created or destroyed. How then, does anything exist in the first place? JONJONAUG 13:52, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

that's a problem for the science help desk. --Charlesknight 13:58, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Or a philosopher. The physicists tend to dump the whole "why is there something rather than nothing" into our lap. On the other hand, there is some speculation that if you add everything up in the universe, everything cancels out to a big huge zero. Because of this, the universe could have just sprung into being from nothing, without violating any conservation laws. This is just speculation, though. crazyeddie 19:48, 15 November 2006 (UTC)