Dr. Sahar Joakim, Does (the Abrahamic) God exist?

[bobg]

Man, I wish all conversations between Atheists, agnostics and believers (as well as the believers of different religions between themselves) where all as civilized and respectful of the ideas expressed as in this video.

[philosophicsblog]

I couldn't find the expressed arguments on the referenced website.

[adaptercrash]

God Is REAL because things move, change, form and emerge ! Whoa!

[darkengine]

A lot of the struggles I find with most of the "yes" arguments is that this only seems to make me arrive at Deism or perhaps Pantheism. A lot of the difficulty I have specifically with an Abrahamic conception of God is with respect to the supernatural claims like worldwide floods, an abundance of ancient people living to over 800+ years old, talking snakes, a cherubim guarding Eden with a flaming sword, things of this nature provided we're supposed to interpret the scripture literally rather than figuratively.

I find the Abrahamic ideas of God beautiful and perhaps even pragmatically useful (among the most well-adjusted people with the most enviable families and communities I find in society are usually ones very devout in their faith; I find a sort of sadness that I can't believe the same things when I see them attend church on Sundays), but it's very difficult for me with my scientific and engineering background to accept such supernatural claims at face value. At least my mother's attempts to raise me into a Christian were an abysmal failure, since I was one of those kids at Sunday school who kept raising my hand with pesky questions like, "How on earth did Noah live to be over 900 years old?" or, "Isn't it more likely that turning water into wine is an ancient magic trick like those performed by Siegfried and Roy? A skillful illusion?" or "What are the practical odds of a virgin wife giving birth as opposed to keeping her infidelity a secret?"

I seem to have been born this way, disassembling my family's house phone as a toddler with insatiable curiosity of how things worked only to horrify them until I quickly reassembled it back to working order to ease their discomfort at the thought that I broke it; it doesn't seem fair to me if the faithful are the blessed that my engineering curiosity conflicts with any possibility of such faith when I bear no ill will towards such faith. Why would an omnibenevolent God curse me this way and make me born this way when I have as much desire and willingness to be virtuous as one of the chosen?

I think my odds of being a theist would have substantially increased if I was taught this was all figurative language and not intended to be interpreted literally (to my understanding, at least some Jewish people don't interpret scripture so literally, and I might have been more successfully raised as a Jew; I really love the pragmatic nature of Jewish theists and theologians), but my Southern Baptist Sunday schools and churches all taught this like they were literal, factual claims about history, at which point I had to wonder even as a teeny boy why we don't also believe in Zeus or Ra since the supernatural claims associated with them seem no less probable and no more verifiable to be true to me than those I mentioned above.

Another difficulty I find is specifically with omniscience. Take the common theist argument that the world appears orderly and designed. I can get behind this at least in an Einsteinian way (quantum indeterminacy throws a wrench into this elegance and orderliness for me unless it's simply the result of measuring bias or a hidden variable we've failed to factor in since this is downright ugly to me otherwise), but it only makes sense to me as an engineer if I relate it to a problem-solving approach like a heuristic or even machine learning where I didn't know the precise optimal algorithm in advance, instead running a trial-and-error simulation that converges to better (and never optimal) results over time. The seemingly-designed nature of the universe might suggest omnipotence, but not the slightest bit omniscience from my engineering background; it screams the absence of omniscience to me.

Only an engineer who doesn't know what the results will be needs to run a simulation in a the first place, even though any simulation worth its salt will be governed by universal rules and orderliness in that fashion. An engineer or scientist who knows the results of a simulation in advance will never need to design one in the first place unless it's for sheer amusement value to see what they already know they will see being simulated. So the only plausible argument to me in this context is a God who isn't omniscient; might be able to bend/break the rules of the universe like a programmer interfering with a sim but can't foresee what will happen in advance. Free will also seems incompatible to me in this regard, and not so much from the context of the problem of evil but the problem of foresight for an omniscient being. I figure either metaphysical free will doesn't exist or an omniscient designer doesn't exist; I see no possibility to have both at the same time. Either the entire fate of my life is fully designed and anticipated in advance or it is not designed and unknown to its creator and I am a part of a simulation the creator is running to see what will happen, not being able to predict what will happen in advance.

[myhopefullyworld-savingphi]

I think it's misleading to mention the Ontological Argument, Teleological Argument, or Cosmological Argument in a video titled "Does the Abrahamic God Exist" without specifically describing those three arguments as not being arguments for the Abrahamic God. The entities those three arguments search for have about as much to do with the God of Abraham as a sasquatch has to do with some undiscovered tribe of aboriginal people in the Congo. In other words, if we find some new undiscovered tribe in the Congo, while that does tell us that we can be surprised by nature, we've still got to do a lot of searching before finding that sasquatch. Similarly, if we discover that the Teleological Argument is true, and that the universe requires an intelligent source...you've accomplished the discovery of about half of one of Dr. J's proposed traits of the God of Abraham in nature. Now you've got nine-and-a-half more to go.

That those three arguments are associated with the God of Abraham is, as I see it, one of the many forms of bias throughout the language commonly used in the field of philosophy that pushes people towards God belief. Really, the term "God" as used in a general sense should be completely deleted. It should be replaced by the term "powerful extraterrestrial." That would avoid the emotional bias commonly associated with the word "God, " and "God, " as it's typically perceived, would technically be a powerful extraterrestrial. It would also be more specific. Now, that could not account for unintelligent and non-sentient gods...but I see no reason to call them Gods in the first place, at least in formal environments. That's because when most people think of "God" they tend to think of a sentient being. When we're referring to a specific type of powerful extraterrestrial, such as the God of Abraham, we can simply use the term "God of Abraham."

The Teleological argument should be described not as an argument for God's existence, but as an argument that the universe required a powerful creator - presumably an extraterrestrial or extraterrestrials of some kind, such as the God of Abraham. That would also serve to remind people that there are many other possible sources for our universe out there besides the God of Abraham, or other singular entities, which people love to forget. People love to ignore the search for those 10 traits of the Abrahamic God Dr. J. mentioned, because that's difficult, and all they want is some reason to believe. With that natural bias people have towards God-belief...I figure even actively attempting to counter that would probably be a good idea if we're trying to be honest, and if our goal is to be honest, at bare minimum it'd be good to avoid language that encourages that mentality.

Just my opinion. I do think the field of philosophy seems to have a systemic problem in that regard though...and in other areas as well. I kind of think the whole field needs some weeding resulting in a big book filled with concepts that are just labeled, "These are bad! Ignore these! You'll save time that way! Geology has been doing it with concepts like flat-earth views, now we're doing it too for the same reason!" I'm definitely thinking about the Ontological argument and Cosmological Argument when I say that.

I'm not sure I agree that researching either the Ontological or Cosmological argument would lead to better education or arguments than just saying "I believe in God because my mother said so." If a person believes in God because their mother said so, that's at least the opinion of one authority you trust who you've relied upon before. Maybe she has personal experience. The Cosmological Argument, so far as I can tell, does not actually argue for anything. It argues for some primal source...which is a totally meaningless concept...because a "primal source" could be literally anything. A "primal source" could be an infinite source that went back in time forever, which a God is often described as being, which would render that source indistinguishable from anything else...and so I've just proven that the Cosmological Argument, at least in its basic form, is totally pointless and should be discarded, so far as I can tell. It's just word salad that confuses people into believing there is another argument for God's existence. The seeming alternative would be that it just popped into existence for no reason. Again...that could be anything. What little point it has is basically common sense and had nothing to do with anything most people would consider God. Obviously, the universe might have popped into into existence for no reason, or always existed...and the Cosmological argument says nothing about which of those two possibilities, or any other, were true.

The Ontological Argument, in one of its forms, produced by Anselm says that God is greatest, and makes an argument for why that means God must exist. In this equation the creator strives to make, both "God" and greatest are not defined in any relevant way, and so that form of the Ontological Argument is the equivalent of saying "X+Y = god." In that instance, we don't know what X or Y mean, just like we don't know what God or Greatest means, and so it's easy to find some way to claim God exists, and totally pointless to do so. From what I've read Descartes replaced Anselms concept of "greatest" with "perfect being" which is equally undefined as "greatest" and so results in the exact same problems. Hartshorne and Malcolm seem to have just basically just used slightly different language.

So...I've not looked into any Ontological arguments in great detail, and there are likely others I've not heard of, but just from the little reading I've done the ideas of Anselm, Descartes, and Hartshorne and Malcom do not appear to be worth reading any more than flat Earther theories, regarding the Ontological Argument, except to look into the mistakes of others.

And that's why I never do philosophical research unless I have to in order to talk to an existing human being. I love talking to real people. I can learn from that. The field of philosophy, however, seems so bogged down with obsolete or misleading ideas, or ideas I can think up on my own, (and having to learn complex vocabulary doesn't help) that I typically see no reason to do so. Just talking to people in person or thinking about concepts myself typically seems superior to the study of philosophy (in the sense of researching the ideas of supposed great thinkers) in every way.

Everybody talks about these debunked ideas in philosophy as if they can expand our minds and get us to consider things we've not before...and they can, but what could also expand our minds, and save a lot of time and keep people from being misled, would be to discuss these ideas but explain why they've been debunked.

[thetruthandthebestexplanat]

Yes, the God of Abraham and Creation, Allah, does exist. This is shown in Romans 1:19-20 Because that which may be known of God is cleat to them; for God hath shown it to them. 20: For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood BY THE THINGS THAT ARE MADE, EVEN His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are WITHOUT EXCUSE.

That about says it ALL. This ties in with the following:

MIRACLE: an event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.

KALAM COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT:

P1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
P2. The universe began to exist.
Therefore: 
C1. The universe has a cause.

NO INFINITE REGRESS INTO THE PAST.

Looking forward to replies.