h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There are three proposed proofs of the existance of God:

1. God is perfect. If He didn't exist then he wouldn't be perfect. Therefore He must exist.
2. Everything, from atomic structure to the shape of the universe is too complex to be merely random. Therefore there must be a controlling hand.
3. Man is made in the image of God.

Three proofs of the non-existance of God:

1. Too many bad things happen to good people. Churches fall in killing many believers.
2. The Bible claims the world was created in seven days (about 6000 years ago). Geology tells us the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old.
3. Man evolved from single celled algae by a process of natural selection, as outlined in Darwin's The Origin of Species.

"God is perfect. If He didn't exist then he wouldn't be perfect. Therefore He must exist."

What kind of proof is that? All that is, is double talk.

And how does, "man is made in the image of God" prove that God exists?
Has anyone see him and know for sure that we were?

Actually, I think the first one is the most convincing. It relies on a person's faith. If someone finally came up with definative proof of God's existance, I suppose you could argue that he wouldn't exist anymore as there would be no cause to believe in him. He would be the same as the rest of us.

One person who bridged the gap between religion and science (and art too) and could be said to have been a catalyst in the demystification of religion, was Leonardo DaVinci, who's painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel had - I think for the first time - God painted the same size as Adam.

So wait a minute. If someone proves beyond a doubt of Gods existance then he would not be God, he would just be this guy that made everything, can do everything, and is perfect? That makes no sense to me.
Are you saying if you have blind faith that something exists then that is proof that it exists?

Yep. But not in the physical sense - the corporeal sense.

Religious people say that man is created in God's image, but I think it's the other way round. A person's belief in Him, makes him real to them. So if he was stood in front of you, you'd no longer need to believe, or have faith that he existed. He wouldn't be God anymore.

Do you believe in God?

A philosopher, can't remember which one, said that there was no point in not believing. If your a believer you'll go to heaven when you die (if it exists). But if heave doesn't exist then you haven't really lost anything, you will have just deprived yourself of a few pleasures.
The risk of NOT believing is an eternity in hell (if it exists) so why take a chance? Would someone who took this view be regarded as a true believer?

You often hear that win/win situation argument. Problem is, if you do believe in God, you could risk going to Hades for it because Zeus was the true god. The other only works if you only have the two situations between atheism and Christianity.

That "God is perfect" thing is by Thomas Aquinas. He was pretty much the first one who tried to use logic to show God existed. He did a pretty poor job at it though.

BTW We all know that Darwin and geology are the Devil´s creations

Although you say the bible states that the worls was created in seven days 6000 years ago, most Christians take this to be a metaphor. Only a very very small minority take it literally.

Anyway, the bible was written by ordinary people. They did the best they did with what they had at the time.

If, in an historical reference, someone claimed that the plague could be cured by sniffing flowers, we would now believe they were wrong. However, that doesn't mean you should automatically discard everything else they wrote. They might have written a truly enlighteneing diary of life during the plague. The fact that they got one thing wrong doesn't automatically mean the entire diary is a lie.
They were just doing the best they could with he information at their disposal.

The same with the scholars who wrote the bible. At the time they believed that the world was created in seven days. They didn't have access to geological information, so they wrote what they believed. The fact that they were wrong doesn't automatically make the entire bible a work of fiction.
The writers were ordinary human beings, not infallible, just trying to preserve their beliefs for the benefit of future generations.

So how do you know what parts of the bible are true and what parts they did the best they could with?

Ummm...

I don't know. The point was that you can't hold that one little passage as evidence for there being no God.

God does exist..I think but not in the way religion tells us...I mean it is like us with ants...ant could havre the debate whether weexist but we dont care what ant do as long as they dont ruen the picknik...does that make sence to any one??

You mean that there's someone more important than us out there, but he doesn't care about us?

Now that's the worst of both worlds!

The people who believe in God at least get the consolation that he loves them.

The people who don't believe get the consolation that they're the supreme race.

BTW I am the same person who wrote the earlier entries, I just shortened my name. I do that a lot.

Actually it appears that I didn't shorten my name at all. When you change it, I guess all the entries you made under the previous name change too.

Now I feel silly.

it happens

Maby alot of what happend to me kind of turnd me cynical towards god (my sister died december last year) but I am not nieve enough to think that we must be the best things out there...Ok a religious person would say that it is part of gods plan and that ther was a good reason for it but I really carnt see what good came of it?? God is there I have no dout about that..and maby he does have some affection for us..but I do not think tha he has this plan for our lives and we are all like his children to him I carnt baleve that

Arguments against the proofs for God:

1) Begins with the assumption that God exists. You cannot prove his existence when you assume it from the beginning. Circular logic.

2) The best of the three. However, if order cannot come from chaos, then where did God come from? The theistic argument is that God has always been. If something can have existed for eternity, why does the universe have to have a beginning? Can't it be eternal?

God himself would be more complex than that which he creates, since his creation would exist in his mind, but his mind would necessarily contain things other than creation. If this God can come into spontaneous existence, existing as a far more orderly entity than the universe, then why do we need him? Wouldn't it be a simpler explanation that the universe came into being after eons of natural progression? After all, we can't see evidence of spontaneous existence, but we have ample evidence for gradual evolution.

3) Not an argument. It's an assumption.

BTW, Da Vinci had nothing to do with the Sistine Chapel. That was Michaelangelo. Not that the painting has anything in particular to do with the topic at hand...

Arse, yeah sorry. I was thinking of The Last Supper in which Jesus was pictured in the mass of people rather than remote and to one side. Same result though: Messiah as man.

I've just watched the Son of God program on the BBC and that starts with the premise: let's believe that Jesus was actually the Messiah. Let's see how we can prove it.
Is this a valid way to go about a scholarly investigation, or does the presupposition colour the evidence too much?

I was mostly struck by the 'scientific' explanation that the Star of Bethlehem was an astronomical rather than astrological phenomena. Astrology began in Babylon (as the program says) but were the Babylonian symbols (or whatever) similar to ours and do they bare any reliation to what Russel Grant does so well. And astrology can hardly be called a science can it?

Most of the attempts to explain the star of Bethlehem accept a comet as the most likely candidate. A star can't really point to any specific place on earth, because it is too far away. Parallax error for a ground-based observer is just too great. But a comet can appear to be pointing at a specific area, because it is close by, and because its tail can make it look like it is pointing something out.

Unfortunately, the closest anyone can come to naming the comet in question is one theory that dates Jesus' birth back to 12 BCE, to coincide with the arrival of Halley's Comet. Most biblical scholars date Jesus' birth as no later than 8 BCE.

And as for that tv show... it's another example of circular logic, I'm afraid.

The program suggested that Jesus was born in 6BC and the star was, in fact, Jupiter which at that time was in Aries (an astrological event which points to the birth of a king) and 'could' have been seen in the early morning light.
The real problem I found with this program was that it was presented by a respected journalist putting forward supposition and belief as though they were facts.

The problem with an astrological sign is that it doesn't foretell a location. The star was supposed to have led the astrologers to Bethlehem. They weren't supposed to know where he was by any other method.

Of course, we know it reads like fantasy, but that doesn't stop people from trying to prove it.

"The real problem I found with this program was that it was presented by a respected journalist putting forward supposition and belief as though they were facts."

So a bit like 'Walking with Dinosaurs' then?

I'm not familiar with that program, Jim. What are the parallels?