Many people from all beliefs love to throw out the statement that belief in God requires blind faith. Atheists take this as a good reason to not believe in God. Christians take this as a good reason to not argue about God. But the idea is false. I think Atheists have the correct response to this idea. The Atheist when asked to believe in a God who is an unobservable being out "there" somewhere with the sole reason of "it's a leap of faith" is fully justified in laughing and walking away. The only "good" reason then for the atheist to become a theist is strictly emotion; the loneliness of this life that can be rectified by the understanding that there is someone out there watching out for them and loving them. Many people do become legitimate believers for these reasons, but these reasons are not rational. They have no objectively justified beliefs, only subjectively justified - this turns Theism into "try God" instead of "trust God" which is not it's roots.

Where then does it leave the rational, reasonable seeker? Must they abandon all hope of rationally deciding on supernatural matters? No. The idea that God cannot be proven is false. It is a fairly new idea , driven on by the anti-intellectualism in the Church.

For the Christian who thinks that belief in God requires faith consider the following Scriptures:

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
Psalm 19

For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
Romans 1:20

The bible clearly states that Nature screams that there is a God. It is called General Revelation. That through the study of nature, we can know that there is a God.

So where does that leave faith? The definition of faith has been changed in modern days. The original definition of faith is simply trust. To have faith in God means to trust God. Notice how this faith presupposes his existence. It makes no sense to trust something that you don't KNOW exists.

There are many arguments for the existence of God. Some are good, some are bad. Many people have made fools of themselves trying, many people have been simply astounding. I don't claim to be astounding, nor eloquent, but I know what I believe and I have reasons for my beliefs. I will share one of the most famous and also convincing arguments for the existence of God. It has many names, most commonly called The Cosmological Argument (specifically The Horizontal Cosmological Argument or the Kalam Cosmological Argument).

It is simply this:
1)Anything that begins to exist has a cause.
2)The universe began to exist.
3)Therefore the universe has a cause.

The argument is simple. It has two premises and one conclusion. I will argue briefly below for the two premises.

1)This is simply obvious. When we see a chair, we don't assume it just popped into existence, we assume (rightly) that someone made it. When we see a rock on the ground, we assume (rightly) that someone or something placed it there. This is the law of causality.


2)There are many arguments to support this premise. There are scientific arguments for Big Bang Cosmological that shows a finite aged universe (background radiation, expansion of the universe, 2nd law of thermodynamics). I won't go into any of these now. There are also plenty of philosophical arguments that argue about the nature of actual infinite quantities (of which the series of moments in the past would be if the universe didn't have a beginning). This arguments consist of the absurdity of actual infinite quantities in reality, as well as the inability to get an actual infinite from successive addition.

I realize that I didn't get too deep into any of the support but for the sake of length, which it is already getting quite long, I will stay brief. Lastly, how do we get from the conclusion that the universe has a cause to the conclusion that a god exists. We do this by examining the properties of the cause. Namely that the cause must be immaterial, outside of this universe, extremely powerful and more. These are the same properties that we apply to God.

To conclude, I don't presume this relatively short post will convince or change anyone's mind. It is far too inadequate to do that. I only ask one thing- think, consider, and dig deeper.

You assume someone has made the chair because you have been taught that. Study of how young children think of things has shown that children think things are everlasting in both directions- they get extremely confused when things change places when they're out of the room, for instance. It's fascinating stuff. (I can't link to it because it was in my psych textbook. My apologies.)


Furthermore, the 'big bang' can be a perfectly reasonable causality for the ORDER of the universe, with all the matter and energy in it being everlasting in accordance with the conservation of matter and energy- they can neither be created nor destroyed.

Are you telling me that I am wrong in thinking that someone made the chair?

Big Band Cosmology had no causation in it. It is an explanation of what happened for time greater then 0. Nothing before. Causation is necessarily "before"(in some sense of the word) the effect. And energy cannot be everlasting due to the 2nd law of thermodynamics. We haven't achieved heat death yet.

No, but that's a man-made object. Clearly there's some distinction between "man-made" and "natural".


It seems that you are begging the question. Your argument is based upon the existence of a "beginning". It is entirely possible for the universe to be infinite in time.
The whole idea of heat death is a fine hypothesis, but it doesn't really hold up that well when you take into account other physical laws.


Here's a thought experiment: Imagine the 'heat death' universe- a bunch of particles of equal (extremely low) energy, spread out more or less evenly throughout the universe. Very well, we have heat death. But there's still a problem- the universe still has gravity, and those particles would have a net pull towards the center (wherever that is) by gravity. This potentially sets the stage for another big bang, and certainly the particles closer towards the center will be accelerating faster, so you already have a loss of the "heat death" universe.

There is a distinction between man-made and natural substances. But I can change the example - you walk into your room and there is a chunk of a natural substance, say a rock. You assume that someone put it there and that it didn't just pop into existence right before you walked into the room. Things don't just come into existence without a reason, or a cause. This is a fundamental principle of science and nature. You are walking a shaky ground to deny it.

Secondly, I am not begging the question. I agree with you that it is logically possible that the universe is everlasting, but it is not actually possible given our set of physical laws. You're thought experiment completely contradicts the 2nd law. Even if what you say happens, it cannot happen for all time. Every bang would have to be a little smaller then the last... eventually it would have to stop. It cannot go forever.

Matter is neither created nor destroyed. The argument of creationism denies that. There does not have to be a first cause for the "existence" of matter in and of itself, and the big bang is the best guess we have now of the arrangement of the universe.

"The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium."
There is such a thing as cyclical equilibrium- consider the common physics classroom example of a mass on a frictionless spring- it will bounce forever and be considered "in equilibrium".
And again, creation contradicts a different law in a way that cannot be gotten around.

Umm... you guys' posts are too long to read, but by the looks of it you've been arguing about the cosmological/first cause argument?

So the cosmological argument is:
1. Everything has a cause
2. A casual chain cannot go on forever
3. If you go all the way back to the beginning of the universe, something must have cause that
4. That cause must be God

However there are several arguments that make this an extremely weak and unconvincing argument for the existence of the Western God (benevolent, omnipotent, omnipresent etc).
Why does it have to be God? Why not a completely different kind of God or being?
Why can a causal chain not go on forever?
What causes God?

To quote Wikipedia, which words it nicely: "Another scientific rebuttal of the cosmological argument is the nature of time. The Big Bang theory states that it is the point in which all dimensions came into being, the start of both space and time. Then, the question "What was there before the universe?" makes no sense; the concept of "before" becomes meaningless when considering a situation without time, and thus the concepts of cause and effects so necessary to the cosmological argument no longer apply. This has been put forward by Stephen Hawking, who said that asking what occurred before the Big Bang is like asking what is north of the North Pole."

Some sort of Big Bang (the details are not completely certain) definitely took place, it's been scientifically proven with experiments and all that stuff

Like a leaky bucket the cosmological argument is flawed in so many ways it's not a very good proof for God.

"It's turtles all the way down..."

As Moniker42 pointed out, i think this is just saying we dont know what "started" the universe, and elevating god into something you dont need to say what caused its existence about. (implicitly, usually)
I would also like to point out some things on your physics:
-In the universe, energy is actually _not_ conserved, expansion of the universe causes energy to increase.
-Thermal/statistical physics has _big_ caveats, that people tend to ignore. For one, it assumes thermal equilibrium, in which the universe cannot be. (energy increase, for one) Secondly, you have Maxwells demon, as (i thought Maxwell) said, thermodynamics has the same truth saying that if you throw a bucket of water in the sea, you cannot get the same water back again. (But if you had, say, a bucket of nanites that swim to a transmitter, you could probably let them swim accross the sea and get the bucket back on the other side.) Basically i think thermal dynamics only has partial truth.
This is not to say that you cannot say that space will probably become a vast vacuum. (cuz it keeps expanding, that idea seems reasonable)

you only assume its put there by someone because its out of place, in a man made environment, if you see a rock on a beach you dont think "someone MUST have put that there", you just assume that the tide bought it in naturally, its physically impossible short of a hurricane or tidal wave for a rock to appear in someones house without interaction from somewhere, so i contend that your arguement would be the one built on shaky ground.

wrong, the very second law of thermodynamics you quote says this CAN happen, in a closed system the amount of energy does not change, meaning it doesnt decrease over time, and hence can go on forever in a big bang big crunch cycle,

But you conceded my very point. To overview what you are disputing (in case you didn't actually read what I wrote) is that the law of causality. That things do not come into existence uncaused. A cause does not necessarily have to be a "someone" as you seem to be caught up on. You say that the tide brought it naturally. The tide is the cause. I think you are over thinking what I am saying. This is the very foundation of all your thoughts and all of science. When something happens, we ask why? Not shrug and say it just happened, caused by nothing. That is all I am saying for that


That is not what the second law of thermodynamics says. It says that closed systems tend towards equilibrium. That everything in a closed system will eventually balance out. The fact that we haven't yet balanced out shows us that the universe has a finite age - it hasn't been around forever otherwise it would have balanced out already.

To quickly address some of the other points:
@jasper As far as I know and understand physics,the expansion of the universe does not increase the energy of the universe. But I will look into this more, or if you have sources that would be nice too. By the way, you got Maxwell's demon wrong.

@josh The frictionless spring example is the very thing that the 2nd law rejects is possible. In physics class you can create idealized systems of no friction to learn about springs. In reality you cannot. A spring in real life will eventually stop. As must a universe. Also gravity cannot account for the supposed "big crunch" as well. The universe is expanding and accelerating. Gravity is the weakest force in nature. It cannot account for the crunch. In fact, to my knowledge there exists no known mechanism to undo the bang. Not my cosmologists actually hold to this model to my knowledge.

i was not disputing cause and effect, i was disputing that things had to have a conscious cause, which is what you seemed to be implying, and therefore the universe does not need a conscious cause which a god would surely be.

the second law of thermodynamics 'equilibrium' refers to energy and mass though, indeed our universe does have a finite age, (estimated to be 15 billion years so far) so balancing out hasn't happened yet, im not sure what you were suggesting with that point, the fact that our universe may turn out to be roughly flat as the current evidence indicates does not rule out a big crunch, which can be considered hypothetically when the scale distance between all atoms becomes 0 again. There would be a Big Crunch even if the total density was even slightly over critical. This hasn't at all been ruled out, however i will concede that the theories for one at the moment do look slightly shaky, but i fear were getting off topic. The original point about the need for god to be the cause of the universe is the logical "argument from ignorance" just because we cant yet tell what the cause of the universe is, theres no evidence to suspect it was a conscious force/being, any more than to suspect a wave throwing a rock on a beach is a conscious force.

ive gone on longer than i was expecting but i feel ive expressed myself.

Jason, Assuming you are a christian, almost everything you wrote in your original post is completely contrary to everything your own bible say's. Perhaps you would like to re-read it.

The christian bible proclaims very loudly and quite redundantly that no proof exists and, belief in god is done solely by faith.....

I never meant to (nor do I think I actually did) imply that all things required a conscious cause. I was fairly clear in the 1st premise. Everything that begins, needs as cause. Which you accept.



It is true that the current evidence to my knowledge has not ruled out a big crunch, but there is currently no evidence that I am aware of that supports it. We see no reason why the universe would stop expanding. Sure, the cyclic universe model seems reasonable - but it is pure speculation. There isn't any evidence backing it up. Or if there is- please show me.

I never made an argument from ignorance. If you read my first post this is how I made the jump from a cause to a god.

This is not an argument from ignorance. Everything that we can know about the nature of the cause from the nature of the effect is precisely the qualities that we attribute to God as well. No ignorance involved.

You are correct in that I am a Christian. I would love to see what parts of the bible that you are referring too. It shouldn't be that hard if it is as loudly and redundantly as your claim. Just to remind you as well - I argued against your exact point in my first post. Perhaps you would like to re-read it.

I think I'll quote a little section from Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion so we can use the scale to clarify atheism and maybe shed some light on the faith issue. I don't think Dawkins is a particularly logical or objective thinker, but the way he puts his ideas across (few are his own ideas) are very clear and are a good springboard for some philosophical debate

Dawkins uses a "spectrum of probability", a scale of strength of belief.
"1.00: Strong theist. 100% possibility of God. In the words of C.G. Jung, 'I do not believe, I know"

2.00: Very high probability 'I cannot know for certain, but I strongly believe in God '

3.00: Higher than 50 per cent but not very high. Technically agnostic but leaning towards theism.

4.00: Exactly 50 per cent. Completely impartial agnostic.

5.00: Lower than 50 per cent but not very low. Technically agnostic but leaning towards atheism.

6.00: Very low probability, but short of zero. De facto atheist.

7:00: Strong atheist. 'I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung "knows" there is one.

I'd be surprised to meet anyone in category 7, but i include it for symmetry with category 1, which is well populated."

I'm somewhere in the 5 region. I'm going to start a new thread with a poll on this.
But my point for this thread is; many theists are not completely certain of God's existence and would not believe in God if they were shown incontrovertible proof that he did not exist or did not have sufficient evidence. People can still believe and "follow" God but not be totally unshakably adamant about it.

Jason,

1) What do you think Jesus meant when he said "no sign shall be given to this generation"?

2) Read Hebrews.

3) "when they tell you he is here or he is there believe them not" I believe this to mean evidence of jesus existence...

4) Read about Thomas ( the doubting disciple). Don't you think that if there was evidence, it would have been much more fresh day's after is death.

5) "To you is given this evidence because the father has made it so, but, to them, it is not given" This one I'm really paraphrasing because I no longer own a bible....

and on and on........

It's been a while since i've read the christian bible. However, There was a time in which I studied the christian bible for 6 very long years.

i dont follow how you come to the conclusion that the beginning of the universe must have been caused by something immaterial, or with consciousness as a god must surely have.

precisely, there is no reason to beleive something without a shred of evidence, in fact the opposite, every reason to doubt its validity.
and as you rightly point out it makes no sense to trust something you dont know even exists.

I thought about it a little because of the "I'd be surprised to meet anyone in category 7"-thing, but I'd say I'm a 7. If not a 7 than at least 7 > me > 6.5. I think I can know that there isn't a God because God is used as an explanation for how everything was created, but if I were to believe that then the problem of how God himself came to exist would still remain.

As I see it I have three options to believe in:
1. The universe just came to exist, I don't know how and will probably never be able to explain how, but it did.
2. God came to exist, I don't know how and will probably never be able to explain how, but it did... then he created our world.
3. The universe just came to exist, I don't know how and will probably never be able to explain how, but it did, and somewhere all around us there's someone watching over us. He came to exist from nothing.

(the following was written without the necessary touch of reservation that ought to precede all spontaneous ideas)
With the answers in hand I might also add that from my popular scientific perspective of things, an explosion creating everything and nothing would probably be the most logical explanation to how the universe was created. Just think about it, we literally have all the energy that exist in the universe just coming to exist at the same spot in the nothingness, what's going to happen? Well of course all the energy will leap of to everywhere and nowhere, creating everything, including the universe itself. A lot of energy spinning of in all directions would probably be the best definition of a "Big Bang" I've ever heard.

You forget the option "the universe has always existed".