Reddit reviews Five Proofs of the Existence of God
We found 48 Reddit comments about Five Proofs of the Existence of God. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Reddit reviews Five Proofs of the Existence of GodWe found 48 Reddit comments about Five Proofs of the Existence of God. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Welllll as a former atheist I am going to have to tell you that if "wanting to see the world as simpler" is your goal, I certainly don't think Catholicism will help. It turns out that God is complicated, theology is hard, and virtue is extremely challenging. I found atheistic materialism with a healthy dose of liberal politics made for a much simpler and especially easier worldview.
But truth isn't supposed to be what is simple and easy. And almost everything worth doing is going to be hard. Putting your faith in God isn't like having a nice sweet daddy/mommy who will kiss your boos boos any make everything better. Nope. Faith makes demands on you. Everything from not spouting off expletives when some ahole cuts you off in traffic to living chastely to putting other people and Christ first in your life. Anyone who tells you this is easy is lying. Selfishness and self-centeredness is always easier and will always tempt you.
That doesn't mean faith isn't worth having or worth doing. Your conscience convicts you long enough until you die and Christ will. The sooner you get started the better off you'll be.
Start here:
1 Read this to know God exists.
2. Read this to know sin is real and virtue is possible.
3. Read this to learn about truth and the authentic courageous intellectual life.
4. Read this to learn how one of the greatest Saints came into faith.
5. Read this for a little bit of everything.
There is a person in the Bible who says to Jesus, "I believe. Help my unbelief!" (you can find that story and the context of the phrase in Mark chapter 9). I always thought that was a profound sentiment, and it's a phrase I think about whenever I experience doubts.
I would say that most or all Catholics probably experience doubts about the faith at some point in their lives. I wouldn't let concerns about whether you could believe in God hold you back from Catholicism if you really thought you wanted to join the Church.
There is a somewhat famous Catholic, Blaise Pascal, who even said that unbelievers should basically "fake it till they make it"; they should basically try living as a faithful Catholic and see what it does to them and their thoughts. He thought that if someone regularly went to Church and tried praying to God, that they might start to feel a connection with God, and that would make it easier to believe, and that they might actually start believing it all. After all, why should we expect someone to believe in God and find it convincing if they never give it a shot? The only other way to acquire any amount of belief at all, that I can think of, would be through some kind of convincing argument.
I think that idea from Pascal makes sense. If God really does exist, then it would make sense that trying to reach out to God in some way would probably do something. God has not promised everyone a miraculous sign or proof of His existence, but you also never know how God will choose to react to people's prayers and inquiries. All you can do is try and not expect too much since we know that even for the best Catholic saints in history, a lot of them only got vague visions at best (edit: after thinking about this more, I realize in the bible it does say to pray expectantly. so maybe "don't expect much" is wrong, too. i still need to understand all this stuff better myself, it seems). I am Catholic and I can say I've never even experienced anything like that. I pretty much believe because I have studied some Catholic apologetics and I was convinced by the arguments, but also because I was raised Catholic and I have practiced the religion for a while now, and I have sometimes felt a connection to God in a kind of esoteric or abstract way. I think more proof about this stuff would be great. But we are not entitled to proof.
Maybe apologetics would help you to believe. Since you studied science, maybe those kinds of logical arguments would help you. There are plenty of options. One option that comes to my mind is this book by Ed Feser. I know a lot of people here like Peter Kreeft; I did a quick search on Amazon and found this book by him. I know Kreeft has talked about the beauty of Catholicism before so maybe his writings will appeal to you. Some other names you could look into would be C. S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton.
I actually fell away from Catholicism for a bit in my college days, and came back through Protestantism and some Protestant philosophers. I was very influenced by William Lane Craig, who has a lot of great apologetics works. You could check out writings and podcasts on his website or one of these two books: 1, 2.
I probably don't have any good advice to offer about the situation with your boyfriend. I have very little relationship experience myself. Maybe if one day you do really get into Catholicism, and learn more about it, you could debate theology with him and see if you can convert him. I think that Church history is a good way to try to convert people. In my experience, a lot of Protestants never even think about the fact that the Catholic Church claims to be the Church established by Christ, and that the Bishops today have been ordained by previous Bishops, going all the way back to the original disciples of Christ through a process known as Apostolic Succession. In addition to stuff like that, there is also the fact that the transubstantiation of the Eucharist is a concept that existed in the very early Church as well, and the Catholic Church is the only Christian Church which has preserved this tradition.
I ended up writing a novel too. Anyway, good luck to you. Feel free to reply and ask questions if you want any more info from me. I was happy to read your story.
Please correct if I'm wrong (anyone on here), but this is an objection to St. Anselm's ontological argument for the existence of God, which you can read about more here. St. Anselm believed you can prove God's existence without any empirical knowledge. About 100 years after St. Anselm's death, St. Thomas Aquinas was born. St. Thomas Aquinas actually criticized St. Anselm's argument as well, you can check out this short clip that goes over it.
Aquinas argued for God's existence differently via the 5 proofs, which does use empirical knowledge to prove God's existence. I would highly recommend you go through that and check out Edward Feser's Five Proofs of the Existence of God. Also, if you're more curious about philosophy you can read about Epistemology or the study of knowledge and justified belief.
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You and your friend can also check out/ watch Edward Feser's apperance on Pints with Aquinas.
I'd recommend checking these out:
Plantinga, Alvin. God and Other Minds. Cornell University Press, 1990.
Feser, Edward. The Last Superstition: a Refutation of the New Atheism. St. Augustine's Press, 2011.
Plantinga, Alvin. Knowledge and Christian Belief. Eerdmans, 2015.
Pitre, Brant. The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ. Image, 2016.
Feser, Edward. Five Proofs of the Existence of God. Ignatius Press, 2017.
Christianity had the monopoly on rational arguments for a thousand years or so. Catholics were obsessed with having rationally airtight justifications for their religion. Their priests are all trained in logic and it's their official doctrine to disregard anything irrational. There are plenty of proofs of God that are completely logically sound (people tend to disagree about the axioms) and many professional philosophers think they're valid (the majority specializing in them). Not accepting those arguments is a more common position but it's by no means easy. It's not some insane belief. To really untangle any of the sophisticated proofs of God requires a pretty deep grasp of metaphysics, modal logic, causality, etc. Their axioms are always broadly simple things like "some things have causes" which means to reject them you have to completely reject causality, or something else philosophically taken for granted.
Getting from that to specific religion logically is much more difficult, but again there are plenty of rational arguments for it. The historical evidence for Christ is overwhelming (by the standards of that period) and the skeptical consensus among historians is that the gospel accounts are largely reliable (again by the standards of the period) sans all the miracle stuff, which they only reject because they're miracles, not because they're contradicted by anything. You can easily make a case for Christ that sounds airtight. Frankly the only good refutation is that the priors for miracles are astronomically small, so even if we had a million times better evidence than we have now the rational answer is still to say no. But one can easily attack that premise by making a case for miracles, a universally reported human phenomenon with thousands of documented cases with no good explanation. This argument can be refuted too, but it's by no means so easy that you'd have to be insane or need 101 application of Bayesian reasoning. Christianity can be extremely sophisticated. I think the Catholic, and sometimes protestant, quest to make everything logically airtight is extremely misguided, but I have a hard time calling them insane.
I'm always recommending this book as the best intro to the subject. But also check out Alvin Plantinga and his contemporaries for more modern scholarly takes outside the church. Analytic philosophy (the branch that's actually rigorous) is full of theists.
EDIT: Scott reviewed another feser book here. https://archive.fo/24uLQ
A radical deism which sees God as merely setting the world in motion and as not needed to keep things in existence can be shown to be metaphysically impossible (any given being is either contingent or necessary, and a contingent being necessarily implies a concurrent necessary being). As far as resources are concerned, check out Ed Feser's Five Proofs of the Existence of God, especially Chapter 6 in which he goes through proving the classical theist divine attributes (thus excluding the possibility of a mere deist impersonal God).
Addressing your last question first: It is always good to hear someone out, no matter who they are or what they believe.
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Some reading recommendations:
Start with the bible sections I've listed below, then move on to whichever of the books I have listed sounds most appealing to you. I don't want to bog you down if you don't have the time. (I personally would start with Feser)
Matthew 16:17-19 would be a good place to start. Then Isaiah 22 would be a place to see where that fulfillment in Matthew is met. As well as John chapter 6. These won't necessarily give you inclinations to believe in God, but they will give you the sense that if you believed in Christianity, then Catholicism make the best case over all other christian religions. To give you more context you should google Catholic sources for commentary on those readings.
Beyond the bible:
Five Proofs of the Existence of God by Ed Feser
The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ by Brant Pitre
Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist: Unlocking the Secrets of the Last Supper by Brant Pitre
Theology for Beginners by Frank Sheed
Have you read his book Five Proofs of the Existence of God? There's a whole section on this as well as four more proofs.
I'm very slowly working my way through it. It's very dense. I'm reading a little here and there and giving myself lots of time to process.
good book
Ok, well it all depends what stage of the journey you are at. Since you have been an atheist, the first priority will be to convince yourself philosophically of what exactly God is, and that God exists. Probably the best concise reference for this would be Five Proofs of the Existence of God by Edward Feser (a professor of philosophy who was, in fact, an atheist himself, and is now a Catholic). Once you are in relative certainty about the existence of God, you need to know why the Christian theology represents a direct revelation of God to mankind. Obviously, the best record to attest to this fact is the Bible itself. I would really just recommend reading through the whole thing front to back if you haven't yet. If you get stuck in some of the Old Testament, flip over and start reading through the New Testament, and just make sure you cover all your bases there. Don't be afraid to come back with questions you might have about any scripture you read. Another good read might be an exposition on why we can trust the narrative on the resurrection of Jesus, where you might be interested in The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habermas, an evangelical Christian scholar. Once you're there, you'll be most of the way along your journey into the faith and you might still question why the Catholic Church is the "right" one. There are dozens and dozens of resources responding to various Protestant objections to the faith, but honestly the best thing you can do is probably Catholic radio and podcasts. And actually, if you listen to "Catholic Answers" podcast (just search it on YouTube, daily podcast that you can listen to on Catholic radio or on YouTube live 6-8PM EST daily), you'll get a variety of quality information that runs the gamut from classic philosophical proofs for God from Aristotelian arguments to details of objections to the historical office of the Papacy in the 16th century, and everything in between, and the guys who do the apologetics on there are really humorous sometimes.
So if you're really detail oriented and want to wade into some books, maybe start by taking a look at those. If you just want an enjoyable and easy way to broach all these topics at once, I'd suggest start looking at the "Catholic Answers" videos. You could even call in to the podcast and get your specific question answered on air!
Hope this helps!
Our immediate experience of the presence of God in our life, like when praying and reading scripture etc. gives us adequate rational grounds to believe in God.
When this belief is questioned, however, it can become doubted and in that case we need a defeator of that doubt. For such a situation, rational evidence for the existence of God can help us. The rational evidence should be rooted in the philosophy of nature and not natural science (in my opinion). This is important to note, since arguments based upon natural science can lead to god-of-the-gaps arguments which we should avoid at all costs since we are Bahá'ís and believe in the harmony of science and religion. We should therefore avoid arguments like the Intelligent Design Argument.
The Kalam Cosmological Argument is easy to understand and effective (though I have some reservations but still it's generally a good argument). You can understand this argument from here.
I would recommend you Five Proofs for the Existence of God by Edward Feser.
If someone demands scientific empirical evidence of God then try to make him/her understand that the demand commits us to scientism which is a self-refuting position. Rational evidence is good enough.
This video by Ian Kluge will be of help.
Here is William S. Hatcher's proof for the existence of God.
In this document Alvin Plantinga provides more than a dozen arguments for the existence of God.
There are many facets to this question and I can say a lot more about this if you require. There are many ways to know about the existence of God. If you still need help please feel free to PM me.
> I'm happy to discuss, but's it's not a part of OP's topic or debate.
I knew, but since you appeared friendly and I can't comprehend how an atheist can convert to any religion, I thought to take the chance and ask.
> It was the combination of everything (science, logic, experience), which is what Bayesian logic requires.
Funny how science and logic (not experience, of course) brought me on the opposite side. What's up with Bayesian logic? I've never heard that argument.
> If you really want to know, watch the following testimony. His experience was a lot like mine, except his was much longer : https://youtu.be/FEZJ6zaa_iY
Not gonna lie, I watched only a half. It was interesting, but nothing suggested that he wasn't dreaming and fitting his dream into a specific narrative, helped by his upbringing. Afterall he was raised Catholic, then rejected religion (but still believed new age religions, astrology and other quackery) and then had a Christian experience? How odd...
I'm still hoping to hear an experience that can be replicated by a second, third, fourth, tenth person and can be consistent in its description. The idea of a loving god sounds awesome, but I still haven't find a good reason to believe it's true. Yet I always hope to find an experience (what better proof than evidence, no?) which can convince a skeptic.
I don't know if you've read my other comment under yours, but I'm quite accustomed to people experiencing divinities in their lives, and they all happen to experience the most relevant "person" of their religion. I've never commented them but one, and the girl was firm that her calculations (cherry picked and wrongly summed) made sense. They were calculations. It was practically a math problem to be solved. And yet she rounded these calculations to make God happen. Oh well.
> I recommend starting with this book if you are serious : https://www.amazon.com/Five-Proofs-Existence-Edward-Feser/dp/1621641333
Judging by the comments, they appear the usual rational explanation given by western philosophy, such as the cosmological argument and so on. If that's so, have you read the counter arguments about them? What do you think about them?
You can always pray - one of the most beautiful prayers in the Bible is "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!"
And anyone can go to Adoration and pray - here's a list of places.
All the intellectual argumentation can only get you so far; the real experience is personal, and prayer is the first step. You could study for years to prove your wife exists, but you won't love her until you talk with her.
Five Proofs for the Existence of God is really good for the philosophical arguments in favor of God.
The Case for Jesus does an excellent job of proving the historical accuracy of the attributions of the Gospels and what they claim about Jesus Christ
Save your $20 and buy this book instead. Let us know what you think after you've read it!
For the existence of God and the philosophical arguments for such, Ed Feser's Five Proofs of the Existence of God or his The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism.
For the Christian life, C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity gives a great treatment of what the Christian life is about.
I typically also recommend Bishop Barron's videos to people (they're a little under 10 minutes each):
Aquinas's argument from motion for the existence of God
How to read Genesis
Christianity and ethics
> Well, it's important to first understand where the burden of proof lies.
Question is if it indeed lies with theism.
The burden of proof does not always fall on people who make a statement about something existing.
For example if I claim "the world is not real but just an illusion" or "the laws of nature do not exist they are only illusions", etc... I am rejecting the existence of something, but I thing common sense would lead us to think that such statements are not the "default" and thus the person denying the existence of the world has the burden of proof.
Atheists are quick to put the burden on theism, but atheism and hard agnosticism make several statements, some positive some not, that DO imply a certain view of the world that really are really problematic.
The most common is naturalism (or worse, reductive materialism) which has a lot of problems which even leads some atheists to reject it (which raises a lot of problems if one wants to remain atheist) or accept the idea that we ourselves are illusions (or rather our minds) and other apparent absurdities, which again are problematic on many levels.
So yeah, accepting atheism to it's full logical conclusion, as Alex Rosenberg does in the book I link above makes atheism less of a default position than one might want to.
...
>That being said, there are common proofs against the idea of a god. For example, in Euthyphro, one of Plato's dialogues,
Euthyphro dillemma is not a problem for Classical theism (which is what philosophers Aquinas fall under and what most Christian, Jew, Islamic and some others like some Hindu and Jainist have historically held and many still do). It works at best for certain moieties of theism, perhaps including some protestant "theistic personalism" views that are somewhat popular today.
Not to bog down the discussion I'd defer to philosopher Edward Feser (and the mountain of literature on the subject too) who aptly explains why Euthyphro dillemma is a false dilemma and not really problematic why raising Euthyphro dillemma is basically showing one has not done his homework regarding theism... and really an argument only pop-atheist make since it works against people who have no training in philosophy and theology.
Same goes with another pop-argument from evil which is today mostly an appeal to emotion and not a logical problem.
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>Likely the best proof against an omnipotent god is that there are metaphysical rules which go beyond god, and therefore god is not everything. An example of these rules is that the creation must abide by the laws of the creator.
What would be these metaphysical rules?
Such claims you make now again might work for "god as a mere being among other beings" view, but does not work for Classical Theism, where God is not "a being", but rather being itself, or Ipsum Esse Subsistens as Aquinas would have put it (althoug he was not the only or first one), hence it makes no sense to talk about "metaphysical rules which go beyond god" at all.
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> What I should have said is that it is inherently illogical to believe in god because all proofs are fallacious in nature.
Only they aren't and every single time I hear a refutation it's always some sort of lame strawman, like for example Dawkins "refutations" in "The God Delusion", where he only proves he does not even understand what is going on (like most of the book).
Also as I have said elsewhere, the five ways in the Summa are merely sketches. Aquinas goes in further detail elsewhere on some of the proofs but many other Thomists and philosophers in general have worked on them.
So the claim "because all proofs are fallacious in nature" is the equivalent of "if evolution real then why monkey exist?" that some anti-evolutionary crackpots raise.
More serious atheists like JL Mackie who dealt with them seriously were not so dismissive (and some of their criticism has been very useful to theists as well).
>If you believe it IS logical, then provide the argument and I will disprove it.
Problem is that just like you do not explain evolution convincingly in 1 page, arguments for God also require space.
Since I mentioned Feser above I would link to one of his books where he presents five proofs (which are not the five ways), including various objections and answer to such objections.
If you are really interested read through it (instead of just finding uncharitable reviews which anyone can do). If not, then there is no point for discussion.
More importantly, as I said elsewhere, to understand one must read the actual arguments of the people defending a certain idea, not just the second hand critique. You would not study an idea just by reading its critics.
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Finally I would say that even IF the proofs for God would fail as you claim (which I disagree) it doesn't make theism automatically irrational (seen the philosophical problems of the atheist position I mentioned above).
Feser's Greatest Hits:
Why Is There Anything At All? It's Simple
So You Think You Understand the Cosmological Argument?
Cosmological Argument Roundup
The New Atheists and the Cosmological Argument
The Road from Atheism
Adventures in the Old Atheism, Part I: Nietzsche
Adventures in the Old Atheism, Part II: Sartre
Classical Theism
Classical Theism Roundup
Rosenberg Roundup
Five Proofs of the Existence of God
Incoming: Aristotle's Revenge!
Realistic Monism: Why Physicalism Entails Panpsychism by Galen Strawson
> how are you so convinced that thre is a god ?
Philosophy. Here some books that I like a lot about this issue:
[Does God Exist?: A Socratic Dialogue on the Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas](
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1621641333/ref=sxbs_sxwds-stvpv2_2?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=6375e697-f226-4dbd-a63a-5ec697811ee1&pd_rd_wg=RledB&pf_rd_r=1S1ZT5JJ1SD3SV9MRNQP&pf_rd_s=desktop-sx-bottom-slot&pf_rd_t=301&pd_rd_i=1621641333&pd_rd_w=nu3hq&pf_rd_i=null&pd_rd_r=a9353d2f-9342-4b0e-a7a9-95c2236ae9e5&ie=UTF8&qid=1543491584&sr=2)
[Five Proofs of the Existence of God](
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1621641333/ref=sxbs_sxwds-stvpv2_2?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=6375e697-f226-4dbd-a63a-5ec697811ee1&pd_rd_wg=RledB&pf_rd_r=1S1ZT5JJ1SD3SV9MRNQP&pf_rd_s=desktop-sx-bottom-slot&pf_rd_t=301&pd_rd_i=1621641333&pd_rd_w=nu3hq&pf_rd_i=null&pd_rd_r=a9353d2f-9342-4b0e-a7a9-95c2236ae9e5&ie=UTF8&qid=1543491584&sr=2)
The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism
> There is no reliable method that we know of to test whether the substance is Christ or not - therefore it would be unreasonable to hold the belief that the bread/wine was Christ, make sense?
I would say this is close to being true. The problem is the requirement for a test. A better and Catholic principle would be:
There is no reliable method that we know of
to testto know whether the substance is Christ or not - therefore it would be unreasonable to hold the belief.Testing things is not the only way to know if things are true. Actually testing things is the one of the worst ways to know if something is true, because you can't know for sure there aren't other unseen variables or conditions you are not accounting for properly.
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So how to we have a reliable method to know it is true? Because it was revealed to us by God who is the truth itself and cannot lie to us. If you want to understand the extremely rigorous analysis it takes to get to this conclusion check out this book: https://www.amazon.com/Five-Proofs-Existence-Edward-Feser/dp/1621641333
Plus since this is such a difficult concept to believe in God has given us testable proofs several times over the centuries. https://aleteia.org/2017/06/15/4-incredible-eucharistic-miracles-that-defy-scientific-explanation/2/
No. Natural selection is a very good explanation of how one form of life (or maybe several original forms of life) developed into many forms of life, but as for how non-living matter could have given rise to living things in the first place, scientists have no real idea.
Does it point towards a creator? Maybe. I don't think it's unreasonable to speculate that maybe God introduced life miraculously, but unless you have further arguments for why it could only have happened this way, we shouldn't lean too heavily on arguments that are liable to be upset by future scientific discoveries. Edward Feser's new book Five Proofs of the Existence of God is a good example of the kind of arguments by which we can show the world can only have been created by God, and not merely that the world is more likely to have been created by God than anything else we can think of right now.
> Don't take my comment as the view that you have to defend this argument.
If you want to see a full exposition, look at the chapter called The Rationalist Proof in Ed Feser's new Five Proofs book here.
Hi there. I started converting a couple months ago, so I can still remember when I was harboring some of your questions. In particular I had a large intellectual hurdle to get past, so I've done a fair amount of reading and research.
a. Getting to religion: Proof of God.
b. Getting to Christianity: Proof of Bible.
c. Getting to Catholicism: Proof of Catholicism.
For a, I'd done spiritual seeking about a decade ago and through a mixture of contemplation and meditation had arrived at a personal understanding of the existence of a God, but, due to my insistence on forensic evidence of God, I'd closed myself off to even entertaining the notion of choosing any religion's explanation of God. (This insistence on affirmative, worldly proof of God I have since realized is addressed by the wealth of philosophical arguments discussed by theologians, many of them members of the Catholic Church.) So, I believed in a God, but I was convinced that human reasoning inherently couldn't work out an understanding of anything about God (namely, whether His character matched one religion more closely than another), because human reasoning works within the bounds of the universe, but God comes before the universe.
On b, the long story short is, a couple months ago I read the Bible just to know what it said, not for religious conversion. But I realized that if what it said was true (and obviously I knew many people in the world believed it to be true), then this was God's revelation to mankind what human reasoning couldn't have figured out on its own (which is where I had been stuck in (a)). So the question became whether there's sufficient evidence to believe the Bible is a true account. The most convincing argument I've seen was in a comment somewhere else on this subreddit: the vast majority of the apostles--that is, the eyewitnesses to Jesus, and who either authored the Gospels or were the primary source for the writer of the Gospel--died on behalf of their beliefs, and even the simplest game-theory game, the Prisoner's Dilemma, shows how most people crack in an even less risky proposition (that is, only one other co-player, instead of eleven others).
c. So why the Catholic Church? My view is, the truth of anything is most confidently arrived at by getting as close as possible to the source of the matter. The Catholic Church is the very first church, and its priests have been ordained in a line of succession leading all the way back to the apostles, who were ordained/empowered by Jesus ("apostolic succession").
As I said, I was in similar shoes as yours a couple months ago, so if you have any questions or want to throw ideas around, I'm glad to keep chatting, and feel free to PM me. I may have found online articles or books that might answer some of your questions.
Maybe buy him a book like Edward Feser's Five Proofs of the Existence of God? If he is willing to read it, it might change his mind about the question of whether God exists. (If you are going to do this, you should read it yourself first.)
There are an abundance of philosophical arguments. In our day, we often use the term science to refer only to the natural and social sciences, ignoring the formal ones, e.g. pure math, logic, and philosophy. The natural sciences can lead us to questions that it cannot answer satisfactorily, e.g. "Why is there something rather than nothing?" These questions are more abstract and rely on logic and well thought out arguments more than the sheer weight of physical evidence.
There are lots of philosophical arguments for God's existence. I've seen as many as 20 distinct arguments thrown about. Edward Feser recently published a book in which he writes about 5 of his favorites. However, arguments for God are manifold and go back to ancient Greece. Aristotle argued that there must be what he called an unmoved mover, a point at which causality has its source, otherwise there would be no source of anything, no reason why anything existed. Without reason undergirding the world's existence, how can we believe that anything has a rational explanation? Thomas Aquinas saw in Aristotle's unmoved mover a closeness with the theology of the Christian God as Creator of the world, and presented Aristotle's arguments, among others, as a proof for the existence of God. He listed in his great work, the Summa Theologiae, five so-called proofs of the existence of God. These are not proofs in the way in which we usually use the term in the physical sciences, but more similar to the way it is used in pure math: arguments that demonstrate that it conceptually must be so. As such, most modern scientists refuse these proofs as merely hypotheses, submitting them to an entirely different method of inquiry, one which is woefully incapable of properly addressing the question at hand.
When it comes to the basis for belief, Christians, Jews, and Muslims all hold the history of their faiths, contained primarily in their Scriptures, as further proof of God's existence, as the physical evidence that modern critics demand. With records of how God has made his presence known among his people, and even made himself physically manifest (this is particularly Christian), faith is not blind, but informed by a recognition that history and philosophical inquiry both lead to the conclusion that there is a God.
Tl;dr: Philosophy and history.
Edit: words
I know you don't want book recommendations, buuuut, I'd like to plug Ed Feser's recent book about the 5 Proofs for the Existence of God, proof here being more of a demonstration rather than something akin to a mathematical proof.
You also tend to use a decent amount of sense type language to dissuade yourself from a particular conclusion. ie: "x seems wrong to me". I've found this particular mode of discussing propositions as obfuscating the truth rather than reveal them. So as a reader, it gets a bit difficult to tackle your exact issues.
Reading this response from you, there is a lot of relativism in most of your issues. While there are most certainly aspects of reality that are relative, there are things which are general and universally understandable and you don't have to fall into the epistemological trap that nothing is knowable because of a pure saturation in relativity. However, maybe I'm misreading you here. I think you should spend some time looking into what about reality is demonstrable (if anything) and how that does bind the mind.
God can be demonstrated.
After a survey of the landscape, Catholicism provides the best explanatory power to the ministry of Jesus
Christ. (I'm currently in the middle of converting from Protestantism myself!)
If Catholicism is true it necessarily binds the mind.
EDIT:
Here is a fun debate between Ed Feser and a Humian secularist which you might find interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A48zsMFodG4
Alright here are some of the best resources I know as a Catholic. Hope they help!
Edward Feser's blog as well as his The Last Superstition and 5 Proofs of the Existence of God
Stephen Barr's Modern Physics and Ancient Faith
Francis Collin's The Language of God
Anthony Flew's There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind
Thomas Wood's How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization
Brant Pitre's The Case For Jesus
Tim O Neill on the Church and science, the Inquisition and the Galileo affair
Jenny Hawkins on Jesus and God, early Christianity and form criticism
Al Moritz on the Fine Tuning Argument
>There is a reason someone should believe in the supernatural and mystical aspects of Christianity. This is a large issue for me. Solely based on supernatural and mystical ideas, from an outsider perspective, Christianity is no different than animism or Buddhism. I can't have faith alone.
Well when you look at the world's religions, Christianity has a clear and impressive advantage in the miracles/mystical department. Historically, in Christianity, there have been numerous cases of Eucharistic miracles, Marian apparitions, miraculous healings and the spiritual gifts and religious experiences of countless Christian saints -- men and women of great virtue whose admirable character only add to the credibility of their testimony. Examples of these include Paul, Benedict of Nursia, Francis of Assisi, Dominic, Hildegard of Bingen, Anthony of Padua, Thomas Aquinas, Catherine of Siena, Vincent Ferrer, Joan of Arc, Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Catherine Emmerich, John Vianney, Anna Maria Taigi, Genma Galangi, Faustina Kowalska and Padre Pio. We also have a pair of impressive relics, the shroud of Turin and the sudarium of Orvieto. I'll also throw in Catholic exorcisms.
And these Eucharistic miracles, Marian apparitions and religious/mystical experiences continue to happen today.
What do Buddhism and animism have in comparison?
>Anything that discusses and argues against some common tropes from atheists such as Mother Teresa being a vile, sadistic person.
Honestly, I'm quite stunned at the portrait atheists have painted of her. At worst, she wasn't perfect and made mistakes. She cannot be a vile monster like Hitchens claims she was, that's ridiculous. Here are some articles that defend Mother Teresa -- here, here, here and here.
Check out any of Mother Teresa's personal writings (e.g. No Greater Love, A Simple Path, Come Be Thy Light) to see what she believed in, what she valued and how she saw the world. Check out books written by people who actually knew her such as that of Malcolm Muggeridge, an agnostic BBC reporter who ended up converting to Catholicism because of Teresa and ended up becoming a lifelong friend of hers. Or that of her priest, friend and confessor, Leo Maasburg, who was able to recall 50 inspiring stories of Mother Teresa. Or that of Conroy, a person who actually worked with her. Or any biography of hers. Find out what she was like according to the people around her. Then afterwards, determine for yourself if she resembles Hitchen's "monster" or the Catholic Church's "saint".
> I was convinced that your god existed, and now I am not. It really is that simple.
Not sure if I stated this earlier, but we're way of topic here and I would have never set the expectation to convince you. The topic here was a theological question, which I answered. For the existence of God, you have free will, and no one can convince you other than yourself. That is by design BTW. If you want to find a reason not to believe in God, you will !
Having been on both sides now, I have sort of an anti-argument. The only way that you can recognize God is if you are truly open to it, mind and heart. Like you said, you are convinced that god doesn't exist, so you aren't open to it ! You might say that is because of evidence, but after 30 years as an atheist, I find your evidence extremely unconvincing. For example, you asserted that the mind comes from brain material. I researched that for over 10 years and found no reason to believe that. The problem there isn't that you are skeptical. The problem is that you aren't skeptical enough. Hand-waiving appeals to complexity and faith in "progress" apparently are enough to convince you.
Moreso, connecting with God is not just rational. It is a matter of the heart. It is just like connecting with a real person. If you are into indulgences (vice) like porn, hedonism, and relating things, then the very concept of God will remain out of reach. To connect with God, it takes rationality and striving for virtue. If you are not interested in virtue, then no amount of rationality will ever get you to recognize God.
Not sure if you are married, but imagine a relationship that was based on rationality without heart. It would be cold and empty. Human beings are mind and heart, and therefore total truth involves both mind and heart. God is not just rational, but the very basis of rationality. He's also the basis of your human experience, and your desire to be loved. You'll never find a set of atoms or molecules that are the cause of that. God is so much like a person that he'll avoid you if you are into vices (pride, impatience, envy, gluttony, lust, etc). Any reasonable person would do the same, agreed?
Something you should ask yourself is why you are on this forum, and keep asking me about God. Atoms and molecules don't do such things. LOL.
> The brain appears to give rise to consciousness, and is entirely material. Simply because we do not yet know the exact mechanism of consciousness, does not mean we can assert it is a soul,
Firstly, I didn't say that one should assert that there is a soul.
Secondly, it seems like you are not familiar with the field of neuroscience or consciousness studies. Every material hypothesis that has ever been postulated has failed terribly upon further examination. There isn't even a workable hypothetical model of consciousness.
Thirdly, all lab observations all point to a non-material cause of thoughts and memories. For example, in documented medical cases, such as tumor removal, large portions of brain matter have been removed where thoughts and memories were assumed to persist. The functions of the mind continue without the brain material. Researchers then are left with wild, unsupported speculations like "mind functions are distributed" or "the brain heals miraculously". I checked into these things and found that even atheistic researchers use the word miracle when describing observations.
> Demonstrate that the cosmos is self-aware, or created. Those are baseless assertions.
No, it is the end product of most of these logical arguments:
https://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm
BGV's proof concludes that our Universe is finite, including time-wise. There was a time zero, which means there was an immaterial cause. A mind is the only thing that fits as the cause. This 10-minute video is worth watching on that subject: https://youtu.be/_ie9musGEqQ
> I am aware of the fine-tuning argument. I do not find it compelling or qualifying as evidence.
It sounds like you missed the major point of my reasoning. No one argument convinced me, nor should it you. Bayesian reasoning considers the combination of arguments, and the weight of the evidence, like in a trial. I studied Decision Science in grad-school and used that. I don't even think that gets to the point of convincing either, but it should get you to the point where you consider that it is possible.
> Evolutionary psychology can explain why morality was and is an advantageous attribute to select for. No god needed, as far as I can tell.
That's inference and supposition and not science that gets to root cause. To get to root cause, you'd have to model and/or replicate consciousness.
> A god is a simple explanation, but it needs evidence. What is your evidence?
I already mentioned the logical arguments that reasonably show God's existence. The Universe, Life and Consciousness are the evidence, and the logical arguments show why.
> The mind forms the brain? Give an example of a mind without a brain.
Do you deny that new connections form within the brain? If you examine the neuroscience, you'll find that the thought comes first, then signals appear at the base of the brain first (not the higher portions), then new connections form. There are also timing anomalies, which is why some researchers speculate about quantum effects. It just shows how desperate they are to explain the miracle that is right in front of them.
The logical arguments for God show that the Universe itself appears to be within a mind. I realize that you might quickly dismiss those logical arguments, but that is just a sign of impatience. It would take you years to seriously consider them. Dr. Edward Feser was an atheist who had a similar journey to me. He even taught his students that those logical arguments were bad, as part of his philosophy class. One year, he dug deeper and read the originals from Aristotle and Leibniz and found that they were correct. If you haven't done that much work, then you have no basis to dismiss them.
I recommend his book: 5 Proofs for God's existence: https://www.amazon.com/Five-Proofs-Existence-Edward-Feser/dp/1621641333
> If your only example is a god, or anything else we have no evidence for, it is another baseless assertion. Thoughts are physical, so of course they can affect a physical brain.
Where is your evidence that thoughts are physical ? It's funny how your assertion there follow immediately after the words "baseless assertion". BTW, Correlation is not causation. I work in computer science, AI, machine-learning and analytics. All my research into the field of neuroscience pointed to the brain being more of an INPUT/OUTPUT wiring hub. The CPU and MEMORY bank has never been found, which is why materialist researchers like Hameroff and Penrose are left with wild speculations about quantum effects and micro-tubules:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rsta.1998.0254
It seems to me that the first place to start in understanding objections to Thomism would be to understand Thomism. I'm not sure where you're at there, but here are a couple of good places to start:
Five Proofs of the Existence of God - Feser
Aquinas - A Beginner's Guide - Feser
5 proofs of the existence of God by Edward Feser is what is recommended. I will read it
I had a comment in here giving a reason for he post, though that's not an explanation.
> Note: may not be the best place to post, but I needed to post somewhere in order to link it in Dr. Feser's open thread today, which he only does a couple of times each year. I've been working through his books since early this year, and developing this concept map as I progress.
By way of explanation, this is a work in progress to visualize the relationships between the concepts brought to bear in the philosophical advances of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas. Beginning for the fundamental argument for the necessary reality of the distinction between actuality and potentiality, the concept map walks through the conceptual divisions of act and potency. Notably, the divisions of act arrive at a core conception of God as Pure Actuality, Being Itself, utterly devoid of any potentiality or passivity. This is not a proof of God, but rather simply serves to define God's role as the First and Unmoved Mover and Sustainer of all things.
The divisions of act and potency expand to the right of the map, where you see how actuality and potentiality come together as Form and Matter to produce concrete, material things.
Branching off of from the soul (here defined as the substantial form of a living substance), there is a section which details the powers or capacities of the different levels of living substances, which are hierarchically related, with respect to the corporeal order.
For now, the section on the Four Causes is placed on its own, as I still haven't decided where best to tie it in, since many topics make use of this principle. Particularly, Final Causation (defined as the end, goal, purpose, directedness or teleology of a thing) is essential to understanding the concept of objective goodness, which carries into the section on ethics (which, in this view, amounts to an understanding of the directedness of the will).
Also included, but not yet connected as well as it could be, is a section on the divine attributes, along with a brief explanation of how we can know them.
There is much more that can be included. As mentioned elsewhere, this was posted here so that I could link to the WIP. I had hoped that I could catch Edward Feser's attention in the comments of his open thread, which he posted on his blog site yesterday, and which he does only a couple times per year. This concept map is the result of my learning from his books:
I am still working my way through this last one, and when done I intend also to read:
>It feels like a lot of straw manning vs. addressing the essence of why atheists are unconvinced.
If you want something more rigorous try stuff from the Catholic philosopher Edward Feser, who was formerly an atheist.
Absolutely. I found mastering Edward Feser's book, which establishes God from reason alone, incredibly convincing.
See here:
https://www.amazon.com/Five-Proofs-Existence-Edward-Feser/dp/1621641333/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=Edward+Feser+five+proofs&qid=1554230492&s=gateway&sr=8-1
(By the way, as I read this book I challenged it constantly. In the end, the book won. Please give it a read.)
Also, noted Atheists do attack this book. It is rather comical to read their responses, followed by Feser, who always responds to their commentary. They truly have nothing, but I love the debate.
The most important thing here is to know that the only way to refute Feser's arguments is to attack the metaphysical underpinnings of his arguments. These are defended here:
https://www.amazon.com/Aristotles-Revenge-Metaphysical-Foundations-Biological/dp/3868382003/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?keywords=Edward+Feser+five+proofs&qid=1554230725&s=gateway&sr=8-2
This is powerful work. The same metaphysical underpinnings for science are the same used here in these arguments! If we were to throw out these assumptions, we should do exactly the same with all of science.
I find it irrefutable. But, if you do read these books, and want to debate the ideas I would be happy to engage! Again, I love the truth.
Let me know how it goes!
You might like this one, but I should say that even though I liked it on the whole I found it pretty dry reading.
> So the term "god" is merely a placeholder for some causal entity?
I don't think I would put it that way. The first cause/Prime Mover is what God is. We're not talking about identifying the existence of
>Why assume that it's an entity?
I think you're reading way too much into my spontaneous choice of vocabulary. I don't know if I would use that term in strict philosophy discourse, since God is very much not a being but rather being itself.
> Why not simply use the word "cause"?
Because there are numerous forms of causality which collapse into God as first cause, and because it does not capture the entirety of divine attributes as we do when we say "God." God captures attributes such as pure actuality, singularity, goodness, etc., all of which can be inferred from God as the Prime Mover but not simply captured by saying "cause." Roughly speaking, we don't want to reduce the definition of God to something that only captures part of what God is.
> "God" comes with a lot of baggage and only amplifies the chances for misunderstanding and miscommunication.
It really doesn't but people are so abysmally bad at metaphysics anymore (particularly on the internet) that it's very hard to communicate here. It's often like trying to explain why the earth is round to a dogmatic flat-earther. This isn't a personal attack, let me be clear, just an observation from general experience. People don't know what "God" means and assume that their childish understanding of God gleaned from unsophisticated religious education is what serious philosophers mean by God. And similar such cases. But I'm going off on a rant now.
This is the book I recommend and I think it will explain things much better than I ever could, at least in a reddit comment.
I see where I threw you off, sorry. I stated
>... but they all rely upon each other to exist for the final result.
What I had intended to get across is that the final result (the music) relies on a series of contingent causes ending with the musician, a one way street if you will. I did not intend to state that a higher part of the series could not exist without the lower, that would be nonsensical to the argument.
> There is nothing about the lamp hanging that indicates there is an entity or intelligence behind the lamp hanging. If it was moving up and down, or perhaps flashing in morse code, you may have something to justify belief in the "something else" being a god, but it's just a lamp, functioning as we expect lamps to function.
A limitation of trying explain advanced concepts with physical analogues. This one argument does not go far enough to claim the cause holding the lamp is intelligent, but there are other arguments that evolve from the simple existence of an uncaused cause where we can get there.
To start you can say that all things that exist have the potential to not exist, thus the fact that the lamp is there is that there was some choice made by the first cause (What I would call God) to set the chain of events in motion causing the lamp. This is a very simplistic summary of the argument and is not a fully formed proof by any means but you can get the gist of how one can rationalize their way there eventually. I would suggest reading something like Five Proofs of the Existence of God, or Does God Exist?: A Socratic Dialogue on the Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas for a deeper discussion of these arguments from people much more qualified than myself.
I unfortunately have to leave off here lest my work get wind I'm stuck in a philosophical discussion and not coding, I hope the conversation was fruitful for you as it was for me.
If you are truly interested in learning about the proofs then I could recommend a great book to start:
https://www.amazon.com/Five-Proofs-Existence-Edward-Feser/dp/1621641333
Cheers brother
> Anything that "can be proven philosophically" is something that can't be proven
Again showing your ignorance. 1+1 = 2. That is not empirical, it's a logical proof. Math is logic. So is the proof of God. Don't like the word philosophical? You can use proved with logic. You seem totally unaware of this, there is more proof that God exists (by pure reason/logic) than the sun will come out tomorrow. But you are woefully ignorant of even these basic things.
> There is no reason to determine there is a God because in order to have reason you have to have evidence and there is absolutely no evidence of a God.
Completely wrong, and you are extremely ignorant of this. Like I said God can be logically proved, and has since the time of Aristotle.
>No one in the world can prove where morals come from
Wrong again, you seem to not know much about ethics at all.
> I already stated I don't wish to diminish what Christianity is in any way, you are literally part of the reason why people don't want to be Christian.
Well I'm not trying to diminish your illogical point of view either. Just like you said people find their morals in "weird places" like a book, I'm stating that people like you find their morals in "weird places" by finding it in absolutely no logic and ignorance. Trying to find morals through ignorance and foolishness is weird, I have to admit.
>Morals can be wrong and if you think that is a false statement try to explain to me how Hitler's morals were right, it's not a very difficult concept.
Again, you really have no idea about ethics, you should educate yourself more. Is it moral to eat an animal? Yes or no? What is there to prove that it's right or wrong? These are very elementary questions when learning about ethics and you haven't even scratched the surface of it, it seems.
>As a former Christian you can tell me all you want about how they don't only worship a Bible and how I don't know anything, but you'd be lying if you said you didn't read out of a Bible at church every Sunday.
As a black man, as a former. You were clearly a part of a sola scriptura Protestant sect. You realize the vast majority of Christians do not believe in the Bible alone. In fact majority of Christians throughout history didn't even read the Bible. Just because of your experience with whatever sect of Christianity (if it was even Christianity, you could have been a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness, or a Protestant who thinks Catholics and Orthodox are not Christians) doesn't have much bearing on the majority of Christians. In fact the majority of Christians are Catholic, which are around 53% of all Christians.
>It sounds like you are projecting an idea that you believe atheists are ignorant
They are ignorant, and you've illustrated it many times in this convo. You don't have the even most basic understanding or experience of ethics. So yes, they are. There is plenty of clear logical proof of God but they haven't even heard of it, neither can they refute it. Read [Edward Feser's 5 proofs of God]
(https://www.amazon.com/Five-Proofs-Existence-Edward-Feser/dp/1621641333) which elaborates on the 5 proofs put forth by St. Thomas Aquinas, which are a development of Aristotle. It deals with all the hilariously bad "New Atheist" objections to them, which shows they clearly do not understand it at all. (Highly unlikely you'll ever put any effort to actually learn and understand these, even to refute them). Or if you want a video. The fact that you are ignorant of even these arguments and can't even put forward a way to refute them shows you haven't even explored this.
>This conversation and the way it went was because you assume the worst of atheists
Atheists being ignorant is a fact, it's not an assumption. You thinking that Christianity is "getting morals from a book, and that's weird but oh well" is also hilariously stupid. That's just a fact.
>I know I converted because people like you think they know everything about things they know nothing about.
Looks like an assumption to me! You are assuming I know nothing about...what exactly? Haha. Also an absolutely idiotic reason to do anything really. Hey I met some weirdos, they were awful people. They also said the sky was blue. I guess I don't believe the sky is blue anymore! It must be read, cause of those awful people who thought the sky was blue. Yeah, this is using your reason and FACTS and LOGIC as Ben Shapiro would say haha.
> So, again stop making Christianity look bad
Oh no, somebody said something I don't like! You better act and respond the way I like! Give me a break. You're making yourself look bad, and ignorant, because well you are sadly. Do some research.
Fesser goes over this in his Five Proofs book:
>They might also suggest that the argument refrains from saying that everything has a cause merely as an ad hoc way of avoiding the "What caused God?" objection. But there are three problems with this suggestion. First, even if the suggestion were true, that wouldn't show that the claim that whatever goes from potential to actual has a cause is false or that the Aristotelian argument for God's existence is unsound. To assume that a person's for motivations for a claim or giving an argument by themselves cast doubt on the claim or the argument is to commit an ad hominem fallacy.
>But second, the suggestion in question is, as a matter of historical fact, simply false. For more than twenty-three hundred years, from Aristotle to Aquinas to the present day, proponents of different versions of the Aristotelian argument have claimed, not that everything has a cause, but rather that what goes from potential to actual has a cause. They did not invent the latter claim as a way of trying to get around the objection in question. That was always the claim from the start.
>Third, there is nothing in any way ad hoc about the claim. It follows quite naturally from Aristotle's analysis of change, independently of any application to arguments for the existence of God. And one hardly needs to believe in God in order to find it implausible to suppose that something that is merely potential could actualize itself In fact, the only thing that is ad hoc here is some critics' desperate attempt to salvage the "What caused God?" objection in the face of the overwhelming evidence that it is directed at a straw man and has no force.
Ha.. really interesting post. As soon as one uses the word "should" one asserts an overweaning moral purpose and teleology to existence.. and of course one should. Theism is frankly about as obvious as sunlight and the fact that women are so beautiful. I like philosopher Ed Feser's classical demonstrations on the existence of God which hardly anyone in the west.. for some reason.. seems to be aware of. https://www.amazon.com/Five-Proofs-Existence-Edward-Feser/dp/1621641333/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_sims?ie=UTF8#customerReviews
>I don't need to. The assertions is that a physical thing can't create another physical thing. That is demonstrably untrue. You're placing restricting characteristics, not me.
It's not that a physical thing can't create another physical thing (even though it would actually be a physical thing creating a physical thing out of nothing), it's that the werewolf, a physical thing, would have nowhere to be while creating the universe, and no time to do it in.
>If a wearwolf doesn't exist, it can be whatever definition I'd like. Just like your god.
No this is idiotic. The word werewolf has a definition. You can't just change the definition however you'd like. If you can, then the conversation is meaningless because you'll just change it to be exactly like god, and then we're not talking about werewolves anymore.
> I would need to know why you think anything is likely in order to demonstrate why my wearwolf is likely. You would have to present your argument for why god is likely to have created the universe. I can then replace god with anything, and the argument will probably not change, if it's any of the popular ones. To be clear. Any argument I present would be a straw man of whatever you actually believe God is. I don't know how else to explain this.
Wrong. What I have to do is show why a werewolf is less likely to have created the universe than god, and I have. You don't seem to have anything to say in response.
>It is informed. Not sure that infants have developed morals, but I'm sure you have a well thought out argument on why slavery and genocide are cool.
I never said slavery and genocide are cool, I said you have an infantile understanding of religion.
>They're equally likely within the context of an argument for the likelihood of any being creating a universe. I personally don't think the likelihood of either is even measurable. If you say god is likely, because of reasons. I could replace god with a wearwolf, and the reasons wouldn't need to change.
Yeah you keep saying this and it's not true. You get that you're supposed to be making an argument, right? All you're doing is repeating that they're same over and over, and not explaining how. Prove to me that they're the same likelihood. Why are you saying anything else? All you should be doing is proving that, or taking back what you said.
>If a being needs to be capable of creating a universe to create a universe, then that is the only characteristic necessary for creating a universe. Adding additional requirements only makes it harder to prove. My wearwolf can be both a wearwolf and have the ability to create a universe. That ability wouldn't make it less of a wearwolf. It could possibly be more likely, because the characteristics of a wearwolf can be found in nature. Whereas the common characteristics given to a god are found NOWHERE. So what seems like a bigger stretch? But again, if you assert that additional characteristics are required to be capable of creating a universe, the onus is on you to argue that assertion.
The fact that there were men and wolves in nature absolutely does not make it more likely that a werewolf created the universe, because NOTHING about men or wolves would indicate that they can create universes. In fact, we know so much about them that it makes it way less likely. God, being defined as an all-powerful metaphysical being is much more likely to have created the universe, because nothing about the nature of god, as is traditionally defined, prevents it from doing so.
>A omniscient god would know. Otherwise, we could start with any that is measurable and predictable, and work our way towards a reasonable conclusion.
An omniscient god would know what?
>I don't have an argument to present unless you give me your reason for believing a universe creating being is likely at all. Then we can discuss why a wearwolf is as equally as likely as a that being. I have no idea why you think what you think, and I'm not going to guess from a wiki page.
You're very confused. I'm not proving to you that god exists, I'm proving to you that it's more likely that god created the universe than a werewolf. The fact that there is a long line of argumentation for god is itself evidence, because there is no corresponding argumentation for a werewolf creating the universe. If you have some, feel free to present it. Since you flippantly dismissed the fact that I gave you a wikipedia page to introduce you to apologetics, here are some books:
https://www.amazon.com/Mere-Christianity-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652926/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1509549912&sr=1-1&keywords=mere+christianity
https://www.amazon.com/Last-Superstition-Refutation-New-Atheism/dp/1587314525/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=V2XKAWX4HD8JGV0KGHDZ
https://www.amazon.com/Aquinas-Beginners-Guide-Edward-Feser/dp/1851686908/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=V2XKAWX4HD8JGV0KGHDZ
https://www.amazon.com/Five-Proofs-Existence-Edward-Feser/dp/1621641333
No problem, friend.
For an argument against religion, I'd highly recommend the famous The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. It's very well-received and typically considered one of the best arguments against.
For an argument in favor of religion, I haven't read it yet, but I've heard very good things about Five Proofs of the Existence of God by Edward Feser.
They go well together, because the Five Proofs book tries to make arguments with specific reference to The God Delusion, but of course there are tons of other resources you could use instead. Either way, if you do decide to read through them, hopefully it at least gets you thinking a bit, even if it doesn't sway your opinion at all! :)
>I also have yet to hear your opinion on whether or not I can kill a sleeping 4 month old baby or not?
Define "Can." Are you physically capable of it? I'd probably assume yes. Would I rather you didn't? Yes. Would I be willing to use force or encourage somebody else to use force to stop you? Yes. Is it objectively immoral? No, but so what?
>https://www.amazon.com/Five-Proofs-Existence-Edward-Feser/dp/1621641333
I've read it. A-T metaphysics is a fringe view for a reason.
If you want to take a look at what I'm reading that specifically addresses your objection, page 61 of this book: https://www.amazon.com/Five-Proofs-Existence-Edward-Feser/dp/1621641333
5 Proofs for the Existence of God
The best stances on this ( in my mind ) are
Fr. Spitzer, professor Feser, and peter kreeft
https://www.amazon.com/Five-Proofs-Existence-Edward-Feser/dp/1621641333/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497032507&sr=8-1&keywords=feser+five+proofs
The common "argument" is Aquinas' first way ( there has to be a first cause because where else would all the beautiful good happenings come from? )
God bless
john
Five Proofs of the Existence of God https://www.amazon.com/dp/1621641333/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_OheYDbDVZY5FW
Religion is not "ignorant". Disparaging those who hold religious beliefs is. We live in a secular society where church and state are separated, but that does not mean we need to disrespect those who hold religious views. Maybe you need to broader your thinking:
https://www.amazon.com/Five-Proofs-Existence-Edward-Feser/dp/1621641333/ref=pd_sim_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=JBGA9F0R86NCQBXMT2ZJ