An Overview of the Classic Arguments for God's Existence
81These are the classic arguments for the existence of God
Over time, certain tried and true arguments have been used to "prove" the existence of God. These can be seen primarily as arguments for monotheism, but they can be adapted somewhat to certain other theistic views as well.
The Ontological Argument. Credit: Anselm of Canterbury, circa 1033-1109 CE. "The fool hath said in his heart there is no God." (Psalm 14:1). To even deny God's existence, a person must grasp the concept of a supreme deity. A supreme deity is the greatest possible being; nothing greater can be conceived. Logical points:
Premise 1: God is the greatest possible being.
Premise 2: At the very least, God exists in the minds of people.
Premise 3: A being who exists only in the mind is not as great as one who exists both in the mind and in reality.
Premise 4: If God exists only in the mind, he is not the greatest possible being.
Initial Conclusion: Therefore, since he can be conceived in the mind, God must exist in both the mind and in reality.
Possible Refutation: To conceive of God only tells us what he would be like if he existed, not whether he exists.
Overall Conclusion: Though not a completely convincing proof, the Ontological Argument may show that belief in God is at least reasonable.
The Cosmological Argument infers the existence of God from the existence of the Cosmos (either as a whole or from specific objects). It has also been called the First Cause Argument. Credit: Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle; In the medieval era Thomas Aquinas 1225-74 CE used this argument in his Summa Theologica. In brief, the Cosmological Argument argues that the Cosmos appears to be contingent. That is, it exists, but could have just as easily not existed. Since it requires something outside itself to bring it into existence, it appears to have been caused by something that is self-existent.
Premise 1: Certain contingent beings and objects exist (the Cosmos).
Premise 2: If any contingent things exist, then a self-existent thing (First Cause) must exist.
Initial Conclusion: Therefore a self-existent thing (or Being) must exist. (If we call this thing “God”, then the argument is successful.)
Possible Refutation 1: Perhaps the Cosmos itself is eternal. Reply: If that is true, it is still contingent and would require a First Cause.
Possible Refutation 2: Perhaps the Cosmos is not contingent. The French existentialist author Albert Camus believed the Cosmos to be absurd. That is, it exists as a necessary cause but with no apparent explanation as to how or why. Reply: If this is true, then, by definition, the Cosmos is itself the First Cause, which does not appear to fit the discoveries of science.
Possible Refutation 3: Perhaps the Cosmos is infinitely contingent. Reply: An infinite series of contingent things is an incomplete series.
Overall Conclusion: This argument seems compelling to many. It does not necessarily require a Monotheistic God as First Cause, but could also allow for Deism and even Pantheism.
The Teleological Argument. This point of view is related to the Cosmological Argument, but focuses on the Cosmos as an orderly system. It is also called the Argument from Design. Credit: Various Greek philosophers; Aquinas.
Premise 1: The Cosmos contains many instances of design. For example, the order of heavenly bodies, chemistry, physics and the biological world.
Premise 2: Evidence of design implies a Designer.
Initial Conclusion: The Cosmos is the result of a Designer.
Possible Refutation: Order and progress may happen by pure chance. This is essentially the reasoning behind the theory of Materialistic Evolution (given the existence of raw matter, huge lengths of time and random chance, order and benefit can be produced). Reply: Even Evolution requires some sort of constructive force driving the process.
Overall Conclusion: The Teleological and Cosmological arguments are probably are complementary. Their defects are each cancelled out by the other. The Cosmological Argument argues for a First Cause, the Teleological for that cause being personal, intelligent and beneficial.
The Moral Argument has also been called the Argument from Conscience. Credit: Plato talked about "the form of the good". Immanuel Kant said that the idea of moral order makes the postulation of God necessary. C.S. Lewis discusses the Moral Argument at length in his book, Mere Christianity. This argument is not popular among most contemporary philosophers, but is often used by average people.
Premise 1: Basic concepts such as love and justice are universally understood in world cultures. In other words, the concept of a set of universally binding moral values seems to exist and be accepted in every culture.
Premise 2: Without a God, there cannot be absolute (universally binding) moral values. Teodor Dostoevsky wrote in The Brothers Karamozov, "..if there is no God, then everything is permitted.."
Premise 3: Since Absolute Values can only come from a source outside the human race, there mkust be a source for these things either hard-wired into the Cosmos or outside it altogether.
Initial Conclusion: Therefore, as the source of a universal morality, God exists.
Possible Refutation 1: Could not universal morality originate from some cause besides God? Perhaps moral obligations are grounded in self interest or natural instinct. Reply: People seem to conceive of moral absolutes even when they do not appear to involve self-interest or natural instinct. For instance, the case of a soldier falling on a hand grenade to save his comrades.
Possible Refutation 2: Right and wrong are not universally binding, but are products of human culture. Reply: The variance in human morality is exaggerated. There seems to be a basic trans-cultural understanding of morality with only the details and circumstances in question. Also, just because cultural variance in morality exists, it does not logically follow that no absolute morality exists. It is entirely possible that some cultures may be mistaken in their understanding of moral details. For example, Adolph Hitler's extermination of the Jews was largely condemned by the world and the Nazis held responsible for atrocities regardless of their own logic supporting their actions.
Overall Conclusion: The existence of concept of universal moral obligations makes more sense in a Cosmos designed by a moral being than it does in a Cosmos where moral beings are a product of impersonal and amoral forces. Together with the Cosmological and Teleological Arguments, the Moral Argument adds the dimension of holiness to a personal Creator.
Summary: These arguments depend on the individual accepting or rejecting each of the premises as true. All of the premises seem to be true to some, but not absolutely proven to everyone. The best that can be said is that, taken together, these avenues of logic make a very plausible case for the existence of God to many rational people.
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Sure. The "proofs" for God's existence are certainly not airtight proofs in the sense that any sane person would be forced to agree. I think its interesting that scholars and philosophers spent so much time trying to devise the perfect rational argument. The best that can be said even for these classic proofs is that they are suggestive. M. Bogart
Biosphere collapse-Peak Oil & ABC Australia TV Logical proof of Monotheism.
From: theeconomiccollapseblog@hotmail.com
To: johnberbatisau@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: Biosphere collapse published by Peak Oil on 19th April, 2012.
Date: Tue, 1 May 2012 10:11:27 -0700
Yes, there are some very strange things going on with the Denver airport that is for sure.
Michael
——————————————————————————–
From: johnberbatisau@hotmail.com
To: theeconomiccollapseblog@hotmail.com
Subject: Biosphere collapse published by Peak Oil on 19th April, 2012.
Date: Tue, 1 May 2012 06:03:55 +0800
Dear Editor,
The USA government has made a huge effort to build massive bunkers in the area of Denver Airport in the past ten years.
Checkout: YouTube ‘Denver airport bunkers with Jesse Ventura.’
I believe it can accomodate in excess of 100,000 for the ’selected few’.
Regards,
John Berbatis
Perth, Australia
Exploring Hydrocarbon Depletion
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Page added on April 19, 2012
2546 Votes
Biosphere collapse
The shocking number of earthquakes that have rattled the globe, especially along tectonic plate boundaries, since the double 8.0+ magnitude earthquakes struck off the coast of Northern Sumatra on April 11 could be early indication the planet may be shifting towards a new catastrophic model. Romania’ s top seismologist, Gheorghe Marmureanu, told the Bucharest Herald: “There is no doubt something is seriously wrong. There have been too many strong earthquakes.” I said in my book: “If you keep seismically shaking the Earth, like a bottle of soda, its structural integrity eventually will become compromised and it will start to fracture like an egg. In this case, the fracturing will be thermal dissipation by hyper-volcanism, mega-thrust earthquakes, and greater tectonic boundary plate agitation around volcanic arcs and subduction zones…if this is what’s indeed happening, the pressure will continue to build in the interior of the planet until it eventually destabilizes all tectonic plates in a spectral pattern of continous seismic oscillation. Every earthquake generates and emits enough kinetic energy through the earth to potentially trigger more seismic disturbances.” -The Extinction Protocol
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Quake Expert: Earth Cracking Up
Here is something interesting from the Croatian Times a couple of days ago:
“A leading earthquake scientist has warned that the planet could be cracking up after a series of massive quakes in just 48 hours. Expert Gheorghe Marmureanu – from Romania’s National Institute of Earth Physics – says 39 quakes had hit the globe within two days. The series started with two massive quakes in Indonesia measuring 8.6 and 8.2 on the Richter scale rapidly followed by three more only slightly smaller in Mexico within hours.”
“There is no doubt that something is seriously wrong. There have been too many strong earthquakes,” said Marmureanu. He added: “The quakes are a surprise that cannot be easily explained by current scientific knowledge. With the Indonesian quake for example, statistically, there should be one big earthquake in this part of Asia every 500 years. However, since 2004, there were already three quakes with a magnitude of over 8, which is not normal.”
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JAPAN EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI 3-11-11
THE UNDERWATER FAULT SNAPPED OVER 60 FEET
THE ENTIRE ISLAND OF JAPAN SHIFTED 8 FEET
THE AXIS OF THE EARTH MOVED 4 INCHES.
To: president@messages.whitehouse.gov
Subject: Attn. Pres. Obama. Mt Fuji erupting is a prelude to a Pole Shift.. how & why.
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2011 09:55:41 +0800
Dear Concerned Earth Lovers,
The eruption of Mt Fuji will indicate that an east/west fault line has fractured, allowing Northern Honshu to slide into a 6500 metre ocean trench. Earthquakes of the past 90 days in the eastern side of Japan has weakened it’s foundation, a porous sub-structure; a land of a volcanic substance. The resulting tsunamis’ will wipe-out millions of humans in the Pacific region as well as severely destabilizing the Earth’s crust, resulting in the dislodging of the Western & Eastern Antarctic ice sheets. This massive loss of weight from the continent of Antarctica will result in an asymmetric rotation of the Earth and so cause the isostasy (Balance of the Earth’s crust.) to become unbalanced. Crust displacement at Magnitude 12+ will then occur until the Earth’s crust reaches equilibrium, while at the same time hundreds of volcanoes will erupt, lands will disappear and have an extreme destabilizing effect on the climate patterns.
Regards
John Berbatis
Perth, Australia
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Rotational Chandler’s Wobble. The Crust presents the earth with an unbalanced distribution of weight, even a small (10 centimeters) displacement of the crust would cause the earth to wobble more (which ironically could induce more crustal displacement, thus causing more wobble, thus causing more displacement, etc.) Added bulges from the expansion beneath the crust would worsen the imbalance.
The Result of the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet dislodging.
“In a polar region there is a continual deposition of ice, which is not
symmetrically distributed about the pole. The earth’s rotation acts on
these asymmetrically deposited masses [of ice], and produces centrifugal
momentum that is transmitted to the rigid crust of the earth. The
constantly increasing centrifugal momentum produced in this way will, when
it has reached a certain point, produce a movement of the earth’s crust
over the rest of the earth’s body, and this will displace the polar regions
toward the equator.”
‘Such displacements may take place as the consequence of comparatively
slight forces exerted on the crust……… which in turn will tend to
alter the axis’.
Prof Albert Einstein. Foreword in The Path of the Pole by Charles Hapgood.
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Subject: Pres Clinton’s endorsement of axis shift theory.
Clinton Presidential Center From: CCI Info (climateinfo@clintonfoundation.org)
Sent: Friday, 27 June 2008 10:03:20 PM
To: johnberbatisau@hotmail.com
Dear John Berbatis,
Thank you for contacting the Clinton Climate Initiative. On behalf of
President Clinton, your environmental concern and positive response to our
work are deeply appreciated. To learn more about our efforts to initiate
programs that directly result in substantial reductions in greenhouse gas
emissions and that help to combat climate change at our website,
http://www.clintonfoundation.org. You also can sign up for email updates about the
work of President Clinton and the Clinton Foundation. Regards, Event ID:
178741 Event Name: Contact Us – Clinton Presidential Center Supporter ID:
208384654 Reason for contacting the Clinton Presidential Center General
Questions/Commen First Name John Last Name Berbatis Email Your Message
In the past ten years, there has been an exponential melting of the ice
sheets and a noticeable disintegration of the ice shelves owing to ‘global
warming’. The loss of mass from the underlying Tectonics Plates causes them
to ascend (iso-static rebound), and this results in an increase in the
intensification and frequency of global seismological activity. The seismic
data of the past ten years confirm this conjecture. Furthermore, the ice
shelves impede the flow of glaciers and ice sheets into to the oceans; and
when the ‘polar regions’ are subjected to unprecedented seismic upheavals,
these events will then cause the ice sheets and glaciers to be dislodged en
masse into the ocean. This occurrence will then instantly destabilize the
earth’s crust weight distribution (isostasy), and so precipitate a ‘crust
displacement’ (Mag. 12), that is, an axis change. The previous subterranean
extraction of fossil fuels and water will greatly exacerbate this impending
Apocalypse. Curr
Subject: FW: ABC TV Australia - Logical proof of Monotheism & a description of our Creator.
From: tvreligious@your.abc.net.au
To: johnberbatisau@hotmail.com
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 08:47:48 +1100
Subject: RE: WWW Form Submission
Dear John,
Thank you for your email, it is very interesting and I have passed it onto the production team.
Kind Regards,
Compass
-----Original Message-----
From: ABC Web-Mail Form [mailto:ABCWeb-MailForm@abc.net.au@abcnewsletters.net.au]
Sent: Tuesday, 30 March 2010 10:56 PM
To: TV Religious
Subject: WWW Form Submission
Below is the result of your feedback form. It was submitted on
Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at 23:05:25
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: /compass/contacts.htm
Subject: Logical proof of Monotheism & Pantheism... holographic universe.
Name: John Berbatis
Email: johnberbatisau@hotmail.com
Comment:
From: johnberbatisau@hotmail.com
To: info@asktheatheists.com
Subject: Att: Editor. Logical proof of Monotheism & Pantheism.
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2010 12:13:56 +0800
To all friendly atheists & agnostics,
The following references will provide positive information to what I have stated below; 'The Holographic Universe is an illusion, But consciousness Isn't.' (You Tube), 'Beige the Colour of the Universe' (abc.net.au/science/news/stories), Holographic & Spherical Universe - Scientific America (August, 2003), fractal crystals description@crystalinks.com/fractals and Wikipedia on fractals, and note the 'Koch snowflake' fractal.
Can the atheists or agnostics prove atheism? Can they also satisfactorily explain why time remains stable? or why there are uniform, 'universal laws of physics' - such as, the speed of light or makeup of elements?
Some take for granted everything works by mere chance... dreamers!
Kind regards
John Berbatis
4 January, 2009
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Logical proof of Monotheism & Pantheism.
Syllogisms that I submitted in 1998, which were recognized by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights - Dr Mary Robinson and the Hon. Justice Michael D. Kirby AC CMG of the High Court of Australia.
Theos - The Supreme Good.
Time must exist before matter can be created, and only an animate entity can conceive of space-time. Time must be a stabilized and uniform condition before matter can form, thus Monotheism is a Truth.
The Universe consists of space-time; which is functionally active and growing but remains stable. These combined characteristics are indicative of an animate entity only, thus Pantheism is a fact.
As a consequence, all mortals' behaviours and attitudes become conspicuous by our Creator.
Reality is the dream of a Universal sentient being. Sensations of all mortals are merely light flashes within elongated fractal crystals, flowing in a white mist which is time itself; ensconced within a beige coloured and velvet textured Pearl, that is, a holographic Universe.
If all electrical particles were in different time zones - matter would not form, thus time is a controlled electromagnetic radiation (energy) E = mc2.
To be perfect - one must know the past, present and future, there is only one, the one that created Time.
John Berbatis
4/21 Cornelian St, Scarborough 6019, Perth, Australia
johnberbatisau@hotmail.com
ph: +61 0422621382
_____________________________________________
Holographic Universe
Cardiff researchers could herald a new era in fundamental physics
Media Release
Issued: 3rd February 2009
Cardiff University researchers who are part of a British-German team searching the depths of space to study gravitational waves, may have stumbled on one of the most important discoveries in physics according to an American physicist.
Craig Hogan, a physicist at Fermilab Centre for Particle Astrophysics in Illinois is convinced that he has found proof in the data of the gravitational wave detector GEO600 of a holographic Universe - and that his ideas could explain mysterious noise in the detector data that has not been explained so far.
E: joneslc3@cardiff.ac.uk
Pictures: http://www.aei.mpg.de/~dblischk/rauschen.html
ASRTRO 1 - New Era
____________________________________________
Dear Editor,
I am sure Theos is about 1mm in diameter; checkout point # 4 and the following response of Dr Ben Rich.
Theos controls all dimensions - an obese creator is unnecessary!
Regards
John Berbatis
Perth, Australia
____________________________________
Ben Rich Lockheed CEO Admits on Deathbed: ET UFO Are Real
Posted by
Xeno on September 14, 2010
Thanks to Robert for the link to the Rumor Mill News version of the article below.
Extraterrestrial UFO Are Real : Ben Rich Lockheed Skunk Works CEO Admitted In His Deathbed Confession
Dr Ben Rich Lockheed Skunk Works CEO had admitted in his Deathbed Confession that Extraterrestrial UFO visitors are real and the U.S. Military travel among stars.
According to article published in May 2010 issue of the Mufon UFO Journal …- Ben Rich, the "Father of the Stealth Fighter-Bomber" and former head of Lockheed Skunk Works, had once let out information about Extraterrestrial UFO Visitors Are Real And U.S. Military Travel To Stars
What he said might be new to many people today, but he revealed the information before his death in January 1995. His statements helped to give credence to reports that the U.S. military has been flying vehicles that mimic alien craft.
The article was written by Tom Keller, an aerospace engineer who has worked as a computer systems analyst for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
1 : "Inside the Skunk Works (Lockheed’s secret research and development entity), we were a small, intensely cohesive group consisting of about fifty veteran engineers and designers and a hundred or so expert machinists and shop workers. Our forte was building technologically advanced airplanes of small number and of high class for highly secret missions."
2 : "We already have the means to travel among the stars, but these technologies are locked up in black projects, and it would take an act of God to ever get them out to benefit humanity. Anything you can imagine, we already know how to do."
3: "We now have the technology to take ET home. No, it won’t take someone’s lifetime to do it. There is an error in the equations. We know what it is. We now have the capability to travel to the stars. First, you have to understand that we will not get to the stars using chemical propulsion. Second, we have to devise a new propulsion technology. What we have to do is find out where Einstein went wrong."
4 : When Rich was asked how UFO propulsion worked, he said, "Let me ask you. How does ESP work?" The questioner responded with, "All points in time and space are connected?" Rich then said, "That’s how it works!"
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Note: Still unsure? Well then explain to all, who created and controls this living Holographic Universe.
goldentoad 3 years ago
I need the facts man, nothing but the facts, no theories. Theories are possibilities.