Why Does GOD Exist?/

[Doctor manhattan]

i find it hard to believe in a god that has only existed for 2012 years, when other religians have had gods for tens of thousands of years. what did people believe in before the bible?

[DrunkDwarf]

i find it hard to believe in a god that has only existed for 2012 years, when other religians have had gods for tens of thousands of years. what did people believe in before the bible?

Uh... well Christianity spewed forth from Judaism, so that, and Judaism would've spawned from something more primitive that came earlier... it's all evolved onward from very primal sun worship and the like.

[Magicjax]

What do you mean by told to do so? I've never been christian or part of any religion, my parents are atheist and never gave my siblings and I any religious "training", or even anti-religious atheist preaching, wanting us to be free to make our own way. The school I went to didn't enforce religion on me, it was there, but it wasn't forced, I would stare glassily and ignore it, I've never read the bible, or did anything other than sing religious themed songs for local school music competitions (I enjoyed singing, until my voice broke during puberty), which were nothing to me other than songs. I've never been told to believe in a creator, my friends are all largely atheist or agnostic, with those who have religion keeping it mostly to themselves. For a period in high school I had a vitriolic hatred for Christianity and religion, which has mellowed considerably into annoyed tolerance of the human condition including the human need for zealous craziness.

I was brought up with science, logic and reason, and while I don't belong to any religion, nor believe in a christian "God"... I do believe in a creator of the universe (as mentioned in my previous post) without being told to do so, I believe this was entirely the result of my own philosophical exploring, so I disagree with your point entirely.

The other thing you're entirely missing is that primal humans came up with the notions of God(s) long before organized religion, back when they started worshipping the sun as a being, that belief spontaneously developed before any books, or before ordered civilization created the need to control the masses.

Parents aren't the only ones that teach about religion. It's everywhere. On tv, radio, books, money, every church you drive by, in songs, advertising, the news, in schools. Everyone that knows about religion and gods where taught about it. If not from individuals then they learned about it from society.

[DrunkDwarf]

Parents aren't the only ones that teach about religion. It's everywhere. On tv, radio, books, money, every church you drive by, in songs, advertising, the news, in schools. Everyone that knows about religion and gods where taught about it. If not from individuals then they learned about it from society.

So what's the argument being made here, that if the current religions didn't exist, there would be no notion of a deity at all? nonsense... humanity is inherently prone to magical thinking, the need for, and tendency to create magical explanations for things that would be otherwise rationally explained, it exists entirely independent of religion, belief in a deity sprung up in pretty much every known culture entirely independent of the others, belief in a god can and does exist independent of organized religion, independent of indoctrination or conditioning.

Edited May 22, 2012 by DrunkDwarf

[seishin]

So what's the argument being made here, that if the current religions didn't exist, there would be no notion of a deity at all? nonsense... humanity is inherently prone to magical thinking, the need for, and tendency to create magical explanations for things that would be otherwise rationally explained, it exists entirely independent of religion, belief in a deity sprung up in pretty much every known culture entirely independent of the others, belief in a god can and does exist independent of organized religion, independent of indoctrination or conditioning.

I concur. This doesn't imply the such things necessarily exist but rather that they need not be present to gain presence.

[Vatic]

Vatic: God claims "I exist that exist". So God is claiming that he is the primal self existent thing. A Consious self aware being is the first existing thing? Why not? Things exist so something had to be self existent for there to be anything at all. Self existence is a logical certainty.

That was actually entertaining. In the conclusion though, you could insert an infinite amount of other answers from "a conscious self aware being". for example, Why conscious? why self-aware? Whenever we get to a question we don't have an answer for, religious people insert god to fill in the gap. Religious people love the gap theory. Things as simple as the sun and the moon used to be gods. As our overall understanding grows the realm of godly things becomes smaller and smaller. The great news for religious people is that it is unlikely humans have the capability of understanding everything in existence 100%.

Vatic: Ran, an infinate amount of other answers could be thought of I suppose. But Lucid's original question of "why God exist" was what I was addressing. What I was attempting to illustrate was "self existence" of some thing is a logical certainty. So to answer Lucid E', I concluded that 'the reason God exist' is because God claims he is the primal self existent thing. For somebody that believes in God, it is reassuring to understand that since self existence is a logical certainty, then it isn't such a big problem to ask, "Where did God come from?", since it is just as plausible for God to be the primal self existent thing, as it is anything else.

The philosophic issue of self existing is very old. The issue has been 'what' it is, rather than 'if' it is. God himself challenged the Pharoah when Moses was instructed the tell Pharoah that the authority who sent him was "I exist that exist".

Edited May 22, 2012 by Vatic