Can the existence of God(s) be proven or disproven Via religion or otherwise?

[Sashikinaroji]

Why do people think there is a god?

They want to believe in the mystery...

[IAMFORTE]

You wouldn't, but what if you saw fire, or lightning, or something, without any knowledge of it what would you say?

[Sashikinaroji]

You would wonder where it came from, and would make up something to explain it, in order to have a sense of stability.

[kawagiri]

You wouldn't, but what if you saw fire, or lightning, or something, without any knowledge of it what would you say?

probably ... RUN!

no seriously though that without science would be seen as an unexplainable force, possibly by monsters or a god.

[tSwitch]

Can't be proven or dis-proven, so you might as well just live your life happily, and it couldn't hurt to be nice to people.

this over and over.

[Ruzu]

Just to throw my thoughts out there.

I've thought about this before and I honestly have to say its near the lines something like is god real or is god fake that it cannot be proven. Because many of us want to believe this we do believe god is real, but some of us blindly do not want to believe in other religions which are the same typically just worded or created differently.

We as humans cannot really know what happen after death or we cannot know at the moment, time will tell if we can or cannot. Maybe you are right and this is a instinct thing or a self powering thing where one takes control of everyone else and controls their fears but we cannot be sure about this. Life is what many of us would call a learning experience, or even dare I say a mystery.

So basically I'm saying its a 50% chance that he is real and a 50% chance he isn't. Just the same with magic, and aliens. We can't be sure in this time further exploration is needed, and so on. Or so I believe.

[Shifting Psychosis]

I think almost everything can be explained. But i also believe some things shouldn't. The existence of a god to me is ludicrous. Yet at the same time i think the reason for us being here would have something to do with a higher power. Not someone who is all powerful no. Put it this way, what if someone created life in mold, what if we are that life?

Its silly, but i cannot live without seeking an explanation. Much like with the beginning of earth and our solar system. It all starts somewhere right? apparently two gases collided or whatnot but tell me this. if no life existed where did the gases come from. What was before those gases, and what was before that?

I don't know, no one knows and maybe no one living ever will. Does it need to be explained though? In many cases religion makes people better people, they make them happy, feel safe and as long as they think there might be a better place or something more then here they don't fear little things. I would love to be content and believe someone was watching over me.

The people i have met without religion are always unhappy. Religion gives us a reason to live, without that it feels like there is no purpose for us being here. Why do  anything if after we die there is nothing left? Why spend our lives working, learning and loving if its just going to end as though it was never there?

But i am rambling about something debated many times before. Will be interesting to see where this goes.

[EvilM00s]

Well, I dunno about science proving god's existance, but I know for a fact it can't prove his non-exisistance. The Scientific Method can't prove a negative. I know, splitting hairs....

Bhuddists say the beleif leads to a dulling of awareness, that the only way to truly be aware of something is to know it. I'm not exactly sure what context the words "know" and "belief" are being used, but I figure if I believe in something- act like it's there, talk to it, interact with it- that makes it real to me. I mean, there are whole sects of faith who can suspend themselves from hooks in their scrotum or whatever, and they can do it because they know their god/gods/other are within them, giving them strength. That's enough proof for me to say that, at least for the guy hanging from a pole by hooks in his sac, god exists.

[kawagiri]

i see religion existing for a few basic reasons.

1) anything unexplainable must be a higher being, whether it be aliens or a god... (yes that's right people call alien fanatics crackpots... nothing much is said to the main religions, even though they're pretty much the same in essence.)

2) a reason to not fear death. (aswell as a reason to fear death which i'll come to)
yay life after death! i soooo want that... let me join your club :p

3) purpose of being. not only does the existence of a god allow people to think they have a set reason, it also lets them follow someone, which you can't deny... many many humans love to follow leaders.

4) control. aswell as encouraging people to do good, you can also control them to follow you by threats of hell. the crusades shows the true power of religion, whether it be real or not. they can command people to fight for beliefs that may not be true through fear and blind loyalty.

these are just opinions i find to ring true, they neither disprove or prove, however i am stating that most humans need to have faith in something more powerful than them, otherwise they'd just not care, if that's how it is now that's how it's always been... (so technically religion and curiosity brought the world of science and history)

[Event Master]

Here is my answer that it can be proven scientifically

You are made of cells, correct? Cells are living.
Cells are made out of atoms, and atoms are not living.
Why should there be life? How can something not living produce something living?
In all technicalities, you CAN'T be living, it is not

As for aliens and such, they must be living too, and they must be made of atoms, and are something living made of something non-living.

Most "leaders" of most religions are only there for power and controll. Look in the Bible, there are a whole lot of examples there, especially in the new testament.

Life after death? Well, it has been proven that you loose a few ounces the moment you die, so souls do exist, and technically you aren't alive right now (refer to comments above) and no matter in this universe is made or destroyed (so they say) so you have to go by religion to tell you that. (I can tell you that hell exists. Many people who were brought back from the edge of death have almost died from fright from what they say they saw. I think that I'm just going to be a really good person so that I don't have to see that, and that's just my personal opinion.)

[Sashikinaroji]

the loss of weight could be due to the release of dense gasses from your body at the time of your death, but I have no clue, as that was a random shot in the dark with no rememberance of how heavy CO2 is compared to oxygen... (althouh, I assume that there is 2 oxygens and a carbon, it is much heavier, yes?) And, this may not account for all the weight change, but ya know, it doesn't mean souls exist because we get lighter upon death.

[Holkeye]

Here is my answer that it can be proven scientifically

You are made of cells, correct? Cells are living.
Cells are made out of atoms, and atoms are not living.
Why should there be life? How can something not living produce something living?
In all technicalities, you CAN'T be living, it is not

As for aliens and such, they must be living too, and they must be made of atoms, and are something living made of something non-living.

Most "leaders" of most religions are only there for power and controll. Look in the Bible, there are a whole lot of examples there, especially in the new testament.

Life after death? Well, it has been proven that you loose a few ounces the moment you die, so souls do exist, and technically you aren't alive right now (refer to comments above) and no matter in this universe is made or destroyed (so they say) so you have to go by religion to tell you that. (I can tell you that hell exists. Many people who were brought back from the edge of death have almost died from fright from what they say they saw. I think that I'm just going to be a really good person so that I don't have to see that, and that's just my personal opinion.)

I highlighted all the parts of your post that don't make any sense. You're welcome.

[Acolyte]

Here is my answer that it can be proven scientifically

You are made of cells, correct? Cells are living.
Cells are made out of atoms, and atoms are not living.
Why should there be life? How can something not living produce something living?
In all technicalities, you CAN'T be living, it is not

If you're going to argue that nothing on this planet is living, then the entire definition of life is meaningless.

Just because atoms aren't living by definition doesn't mean that life can't come from them.
Think of a building. It's made of bricks. Just because the bricks aren't buildings themselves doesn't make it impossible for the bricks to make a building.

Life after death? Well, it has been proven that you loose a few ounces the moment you die, so souls do exist,

What happened to "scientifically proven"? There's absolutely nothing scientific to suggest that losing a few ounces after you die equals having a soul. What about all the fluids and wastes that escape your body after you die? I'm sure completely voiding yourself has to account for at least a few ounces. >_>

[IAMFORTE]

What happened to "scientifically proven"? There's absolutely nothing scientific to suggest that losing a few ounces after you die equals having a soul. What about all the fluids and wastes that escape your body after you die? I'm sure completely voiding yourself has to account for at least a few ounces. >_>

we cant forget all that oxygen stored up in your lungs

[Andarilho]

The main problem in proving the god existence is religion.
All the bases of scientific or theological studies are in god's religious belief, and not in logical thinking.
It's obvious that the Bible (and similars) is not proof for nothing, anyone that studied a bit of history can reach this conclusion.

I do believe in something more than the matter, maybe God if you guys want to call this way, but not the religious one.
All I can refer to now, is the most rational and conclusive material that I saw, the Book of Spirits by Allan Kardek, interesting reading: http://www.spiritwritings.com/kardecspiritsbook1.html#Proofs

And this quote from Newton:
"This most beautiful system [The Universe] could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being."

At the end, the only proof that I have is my rational conclusions. And that is most than sufficiently for me.

[IAMFORTE]

Meaning, something up there created everything?


An odd question is, if matter can't be created form nothing, where did it all start, something must have made matter.

[Andarilho]

Cause and effect. The humans made the cars, but not the trees and planets. For that reason you need a cause (and a intelligent one, a rock or a dog can't make a game). If you have an intelligent cause for the planets, you will don't need nothing else, because there is nothing left that this intelligent could not create. Simple this way.

If the humans had created the trees or the animals, surely that you would not need nothing else than ourselves (nor god neither bearded elder).

The most difficult thing for atheists to get thinking in anything besides the matter itself is that they are a lot influenced by religious misbeliefs. Everything that they can think about the "besides" come from religious foolish. Ironic. (not generalizing, but in most cases)

I'm not talking about the god, the true and powerful. Or about a magic energy. I'm talking that the matter is not all.

[IAMFORTE]

Arent planets created by rocks being drawn in from bigger rocks gravity?

Altough I like where you're coming from.

[Andarilho]

And from where the gravity come from?
Well, if the gravity is a random event, surely you don't need of the above question.
But gravity is a intelligent law wich creates a intelligent effect.

If the gravity is random, at any second (or much less than that) all the universe can blow out.

Imagine a thing that occurs all the time and every time it occurs it maintains the same structure. Multiply that by a billions of years and billions of events, if that is a mere coincidence of the matter itself, without an ordered intelligent , I can call that a miracle, because the mathematical possibilities are near impossible.
I don't believe in miracles, and you?

It's the same conclusion that Newton had. It's only rational thinking, it's not a proof, I can't prove nothing, you all can't prove nothing.

Edit: Instead of Newton, I will post now an Einstein quote:
"I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice."

[Sashikinaroji]

gravity is not something that is exactly the same everywhere. It is something that is moves around the orbit of larger gravities (e.g. the earth has a center of gravity that rotates around the sun, and each of them has a different strength and nature)

The fact that this is maintained is no more impressive than looking at a computer for 10 years and realizing that the computer doesn't break into a million pieces for no reason. That is, things don't change by themselves. They need a catalyst to change.

As soon as we find a proper catalyst to change the gravity, we could make it less stable, just like if we found a proper catalyst to change the state of a computer (e.g. a hammer), we could make it less stable (e.g. be smashed by a hammer)

But the same goes for things that were created naturally.



Now, as for your whole thing about everything must come from something else... Well, no duh.

A decent majority of people who believe in the big bang theory and the like acknowledge that, even though they have a theory on how the universe was created, they don't know how that super-condensed piece of matter came to be, and why it exploded. That isn't the important part of the big bang theory, though.

The most important part of the big bang and evolution theories is everything that happened after the bang was initialized, that is, as soon as the matter started to explode, that is the important part.

It shows a theory on how the rocks and gasses that make up the galaxy may have come to be where they are, and how they might have changed to become habitable.

[Irock]

gravity is not something that is exactly the same everywhere. It is something that is moves around the orbit of larger gravities

What. Are you trying to say that objects, by default, orbit around objects with greater gravity? It will only orbit if it has the velocity to allow it to orbit. If it initially had no velocity, or if its velocity didn't meet the requirements to send it into orbit, it would just head directly toward the object or entirely miss it. It sounds to me you don't know how gravity works. Gravity is just the attraction between objects with mass.

[Sashikinaroji]

guilty as charged.

I have been totally winging that stuff for years.

[Andarilho]

gravity is not something that is exactly the same everywhere. It is something that is moves around the orbit of larger gravities (e.g. the earth has a center of gravity that rotates around the sun, and each of them has a different strength and nature)

The fact that this is maintained is no more impressive than looking at a computer for 10 years and realizing that the computer doesn't break into a million pieces for no reason. That is, things don't change by themselves. They need a catalyst to change.

As soon as we find a proper catalyst to change the gravity, we could make it less stable, just like if we found a proper catalyst to change the state of a computer (e.g. a hammer), we could make it less stable (e.g. be smashed by a hammer)

But the same goes for things that were created naturally.

No difference. By explaining how gravity works you're only describing a process, and a process in a intelligent order. What I say is that, things are not random. You can explain everything, but nothing occur without cause and consequence. We have some "scientists" that are defensors of coincidence, but surely there's no coincidence, the belief in coincidence is blind as believing in religion. Unless, you believe in miracles.

[Holkeye]

Science is the disproving of coincidence. Also, I think you're confusing intelligence for nature. Intelligence is a characteristic ascribed, (by the obvious use of the word,) to a living creature. Gravity, as your example goes, is not a "process in a (sic) intelligent order." Gravity is a natural element of the universe that we reside in. Truthfully, I don't even know why I'm taking the time to type this, since you're obviously either a kid, not very legible, or a non-native English speaker. Elitist Debate has gone down the shitter. There should be an age gate on this board.

[Link]

gravity is not something that is exactly the same everywhere. It is something that is moves around the orbit of larger gravities (e.g. the earth has a center of gravity that rotates around the sun, and each of them has a different strength and nature)

The fact that this is maintained is no more impressive than looking at a computer for 10 years and realizing that the computer doesn't break into a million pieces for no reason. That is, things don't change by themselves. They need a catalyst to change.

As soon as we find a proper catalyst to change the gravity, we could make it less stable, just like if we found a proper catalyst to change the state of a computer (e.g. a hammer), we could make it less stable (e.g. be smashed by a hammer)

But the same goes for things that were created naturally.

No difference. By explaining how gravity works you're only describing a process, and a process in a intelligent order. What I say is that, things are not random. You can explain everything, but nothing occur without cause and consequence. We have some "scientists" that are defensors of coincidence, but surely there's no coincidence, the belief in coincidence is blind as believing in religion. Unless, you believe in miracles.

That whole argument is, to me, the same fear mongering as religion

"There must be a god otherwise gravity is something we can not trust to stay there"
"There must be a god otherwise when you die, you are nothing anymore" 

If as you say things are not random, then there is still no reason to believe in a god as even if you did everything would still happen, if you prayed to a god or if you didn't life would roll on the same way.