Logical explanation: why a god must exist

It's not a good argument for God's existence at all, but if it helps people to adopt the preferable absolutist viewpoint, it could be a good argument for society's "acknowledgment" of the God concept, as you had asked about earlier. Do you get what I'm saying?

I am not really sure how one avoids relativism or nihilism except by a claim to transcendent aesthetic and ethical values.

I think the assertion that Plato did not believe in god is incorrect. Plato refers to the One the monad and the demiurge both of which have transcendent divine properties.

Hm, not quite.

I acknowledge that God is a concept, and I think any rational man should. Why do I have to adopt the preferable (for sake of argument) absolutist viewpoint to understand this? I guess I don't understand how prefering the absolutist viewpoint would allow me, or anyone, to better acknowledge God. I guess because absolutism is generally tied directly into the concept of God? Is it possible that one be an absolutist and not a theist? It seems possible to me.

Yes, you can certainly be an absolutist and not a theist. As I said, I think Plato was one well-known example of this. Think of religion and its God concept as a 'noble lie'. Perhaps then it is useful to introduce it because of its alleged absolutist benefits for the masses.

Huh? Are you aware what pure relativism and nihilism really entail? It's very easy to avoid both, God or not!

This is a decent point, but only if you can also convince me that the 'notion of Absolute' is preferable to the notion of everything being relative.

It seems to me that if all values and aesthetics are human derived concepts that relativism is entailed.

I am not really sure what the "standard god concept" is. Likewise I am not really sure what the "standard concept of the divine" is. Plato was a little inconsistent in his writings with respect to the origin of the world but scattered throughout are references to the World-Soul, the Demiurge, the Creator, the One, the Dyad, etc. Christian theologians particularly Augustine from Plato and Aquinas from Aristotle borrow heavily from Greek philosophical notions. One thing I think can be said, Plato was not atheistic in his view of the origins of the world.

I find the concept of the Demiurge as creator of the world trying to make the world as good as possible but working with the preexisting formless void to be more in keeping with the original conception of the divine as portrayed in Genesis. In any event I think it is overstating the case to say Plato did not believe in some form of "god" or the "divine".

Sure, you might convince yourself of this, if you read the Timaeus literally, and regard the mythology within it as Plato's personal outlook,,,. still had to participate in the One or the Good, which was Plato's highest form, and to equate a literal interpretation of this with the single entity of Abrahamic theology is ridiculous...The dialogue involves a reconciling of greek mythology with Plato's forms, ...

If you believe in logic than you believe in God:

You agree that nothing cannot create something, right?
everything must come from something.

now you'll agree that time is a finite thing (ex. if i say, count to a infinity, will you ever reach infinity? No.)

Thus meaning that something immaterial (without matter) and omnipresent (without time) Must have created everything.

As for the then how was god created question

God does not need to be created because he has been around forever, you may say how is this possible. but God is without time. He lives in the past present and future and to him time is a mere physical boundary that us humans live in.

...

I cannot prove the existence of the computer I am typing on now, I do not fully understand how it works, but I know for sure I can participate in philosophy discussions with its help. It takes simple wisdom to become familiar with computer instead of rejecting it.

I enjoy my connection with God without being able to prove His existence. I don't know how He works, but I have not a slightest doubt that with His help I can grow into perfection and eventually reach the eternal life.

Isn't it wise to go for it?

Yes you can: If you have a digital camera, take a picture of your computer and post it. :shifty: There are other methods to know the existence of your computer, too, such as ip tracking, cookies, etc.
...
Probably a DSL or cablemodemn of some sort...

Great point! But note that God is on a different network. Install faith, set up a spiritual connection, go online and get access to the greatest re-source of your life.

...

If you believe in logic than you believe in God:

I'm not an atheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the Universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand those laws.'

A couple of remarks on the 'God concept'.

In having a discussion about these topics, we will form some understanding of the idea of God and feel that we know what is being referred to.

However I will suggest that whatever the concept is, it is really just a placeholder. It is a placeholder in the conversation which occupies the space that the ostensible notion of God resides in.

Because although it is true that you can have more or less accurate conceptual and verbal depictions of Deity, the 'thing in itself' is beyond the conceptual mind.

This is why 'religious experiences' or 'conversion experiences' are so fundamentally re-orienting. Those who undergo them frequently report that there entire understanding, not only of what 'God' is, but the nature of life itself, are completely re-arranged by a moment of 'experience of the sacred'.

Now I am not trying to browbeat anyone with this idea, nor claiming that I have had such an experience and therefore know something special. The point of saying it is to highlight that there are non-conceptual spiritual experiences, which people do have, and have been reported from across all cultures, peoples and times in history. If you study what these reports say, or have such an experience, it often will put the question in a different light. And a conspicuous and oft-repeated statement in all of these experiences was: "All my ideas about God were wrong".

Still, I know this is a philosophy forum, and it is perfectly sound to discuss these ideas anyway. But it is important to bear that caveat in mind.

As to the question: 'How does one know whether God exists' - an answer from my personal perspective.

First, God is beyond existence. This is not evasive or sophist. But God is not a material phenomonon or thing of any kind. So you can argue whether God exists or not, but 'is God real'? is actually a different question to 'whether God exists'. If God is the underlying reality beyond all existence, then the notion that God merely 'exists' is red herring. It is a different order or level of reality or being altogether.

So you could ask, 'Is God real for you?' And I would say that if one answers in the affirmative, then one has faith in the reality of God. Faith is different to knowledge. I know what time the bus comes in the morning, how to type, how to poach an egg, the chemical composition and many other things. But this 'sense of abiding presence' is of a different order to knowledge of that kind.

Here is an interesting quote from a well-known scientist, Albert Einstein:



Albert Einstien: His Life and Universe Walter Isaacson, Unwin Books, 2006, p386.

I think the statement "I am not an atheist" is, however, fairly unequivocal. I am also 'not an atheist' in a similar way to Einstein, and for similar reasons.