Is there proof God exists?

Hamal wrote:

If there was any real concrete and verifiable proof of the existence of any of the variety of deities worshiped around the globe I don't see how people could keep it a secret even if they wanted to.

The various deities are merely symbols for that which is beyond words. God, the ultimate reality, is the higher Self which is experienced in its impersonal aspect as silent awareness, still Presence. How do you tell people about silent awareness? Why would they care? If awareness or consciousness is the source of the material world, you speak about God as the Creator. To emphasize the significance of God, you portray God in lofty, absolute terms such as omnipresent, omniscient, etc. Religion is the failed attempt to describe that which is indescribable.

You must conclude what time is before you can proceed.

There are many who will twist wildly in order to conclude there is no God to whom they may have obligation.

I tend to think that the various deities are more a symbol of the human imagination. I would definitely agree that if there is a god, the explanations we have must be off.

I can not see how an entity that created the cosmos would be so petty about things such as homosexuality or simply being so exclusive in general.

Most gods you have to choose from require you to exclude an enormous part of the population from your acceptance. Exclusiveness is a human trait in my opinion. I have a hard time buying the idea that a creator would exclude so much of its own creation.

Forgive me if I've misunderstood the thrust of your post. It sounds like you are coming from a Buddhist point of view? Buddhist philosophy for the most part does fit well with me, but there are still details of it that do not. I am trying to learn more about all of this but I find myself having to take breaks from it. There is just so much.

4000 year old science does not equal religion.

Evolution is not so much a modern discovery as some of its advocates would have us believe. It made its appearance early in Greek philosophy, and maintained its position more or less, with the most diverse modifications, and frequently confused with the idea of emanation, until the close of ancient thought. The Greeks had, it is true, no term exactly equivalent to " evolution"; but when Thales asserts that all things originated from water; when Anaximenes calls air the principle of all things, regarding the subsequent process as a thinning or thickening, they must have considered individual beings and the phenomenal world as, a result of evolution, even if they did not carry the process out in detail. Anaximander is often regarded as a precursor of the modem theory of development. He deduces living beings, in a gradual development, from moisture under the influence of warmth, and suggests the view that men originated from animals of another sort, since if they had come into existence as human beings, needing fostering care for a long time, they would not have been able to maintain their existence. In Empedocles, as in Epicurus and Lucretius, who follow in Hs footsteps, there are rudimentary suggestions of the Darwinian theory in its broader sense; and here too, as with Darwin, the mechanical principle comes in; the process is adapted to a certain end by a sort of natural selection, without regarding nature as deliberately forming its results for these ends.

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You must conclude what time is before you can proceed.

No, actually we conjecture that we can describe time as a dimension (a degree of freedom). Science from an epistemological position can NEVER make the type of conclusions you are talking about.

Science doesn't even CONCLUDE reality exists, we conjecture that if what we experience is Real and make observations and learn rules we can make useful predictions. That is as much as science attempts.

You now say that "science doesn't even conclude that reality exists"

proposition (as in mathematics) before it has been proved or disproved'

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You now say that "science doesn't even conclude that reality exists"

I never took any other position. Its what I was taught.

I'm from the physical sciences and so have no problem with: proposition (as in mathematics) before it has been proved or disproved'

For the upteenth time science NEVER proves ANYTHING or comes to any CONCLUSIONS in the way use use the terms proof and conclusion.

As I said you might want to try one of the degree thinggies. I can't teach you science on a web post.

Since God is your own higher Self, the experience of a personal God (as a vision or object of devotion) is specific to the individual psyche, although the impersonal aspect of God is silent awareness which is the same for everyone.

Many philosophies have made very valiant attempts to explain reality and I think in many cases it should be commended. I'll even borrow the ideas and apply them to my life to hopefully better myself. However, I come from a very skeptical view point. All I have is my personal life experience and no god has revealed themselves to me. That includes any notion that I may be god. All I have to go on for ideas like this are the accounts and stories of other people...

This there proof God exists?

Look guys. There is proof of the existence of God (Creator). And it is not so complicated that no one can understand. Here it is.

When we look around us at everything we can sense one factor is shared by these things, and that is that they are all limited. By limited we mean that they have restrictions, a starting point and an ending point, and they all have definable attributes, i.e. they are finite. Man is born and he dies. There is no one alive who will not die. During his life span, he will grow to a certain shape, height and volume. The universe is defined as all the celestial bodies and planets. All these objects have a certain mass, shape, volume and so on. The life span of a star may be very long, but a point in time will come when it will cease to exist.

The universe is large, but is still a 'finite' space. NO scientist could ever prove using hard facts that the universe has no bounds. In fact when they say the universe arose from a Big Bang and is expanding they inherently admit it is finite in size, otherwise it could not expand! There is nothing in reality which is unlimited. No matter how hard we try, man is unable to find anything unlimited around him. All he can perceive is the finite and limited.

A further attribute of everything around us is that they are all needy and dependent in order to continue existing. They are not self sustaining or independent. Man has needs. He has to satisfy in order to survive. He has organic needs. Man must eat and drink if he is to survive. If he does not he will die. We see need and dependency in plants and animals. They depend On other parts Of the food chain for their existence. The water cycle is dependent On the sun, which is dependent on the laws of the galaxies and of burning mass, and SO on... Nothing man can perceive is self-subsistent. So things exist, but do not have the power of existence. They cannot control when they die or when other bodies die. There is one fact that emerges from all this. If something is limited and finite, and does not have the power to be self-subsistent then it must have been created.

Applying this to everything we see will bring us to a conclusion. If everything in the universe is created because it has not the power of being in existence on its own, and is finite and limited, then there must be a Creator. This Creator by contrast has to be unlimited and not needy and dependent on anything to bring It into, or sustain It's existence.

The universe; the sum of finite and dependent objects is finite and dependent -but dependent on what? Dependent on something to start and sustain life, something to plan and develop life. The only rational and intellectual solution to the question Of creation is that there is a Creator which has accounted for all that we see and perceive. Rational tells us that nothing can be created without a creator. Ultimately there must be a Creator who is unlimited in every aspect.


Conclusion:
Since everything in the universe is limited, it must mean that it didnt exist at one point. Thus it had to be created. God did it.

You have a engineering degree and think science and God are the same. Give me a break! You learned that in exactly what engineering class. And when you tell the engineers you work with God created the Earth in six days 6,000 years ago they say what...

By the way how often do you deal with epistemological issues in metallurgy?

You have a engineering degree and think science and God are the same. Give me a break! You learned that in exactly what engineering class. And when you tell the engineers you work with God created the Earth in six days 6,000 years ago they say what...

What I would like to know is what his fellow engineers would say to the statement that the sun, moon and stars were created after the earth, plants and trees (Genesis 1:1-19)?

xingu wrote:

What I would like to know is what his fellow engineers would say to the statement that the sun, moon and stars were created after the earth, plants and trees (Genesis 1:1-19)?

Do you think plants can survive a day without the sun, especially if they already have access to light?

real life wrote:

xingu wrote:

What I would like to know is what his fellow engineers would say to the statement that the sun, moon and stars were created after the earth, plants and trees (Genesis 1:1-19)?

Do you think plants can survive a day without the sun, especially if they already have access to light?

So now your saying three things here;

1. The day is 24 hours and not some undefined time period.

2. There was a mysterious source of light.

3. You accept the Biblical version that the earth was created before the universe; that is before the sun, moon and stars.