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The Case For The Existence of God
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- a strategy of argumentation for
the idea that God exists;
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by Carl Baydala
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second draft
23:05 June 6, 2009
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Introduction and Strategy
.Friends, as you know, I am an atheist, or as some have determined, an agnostic. At any rate, I am not a firm believer in the notion of the existence of God. But, that label is not going to deter me from constructing an argument for the existence of the Entity. In fact, I think it is very worthy endeavor indeed, to argue in favor of the Entity, that is. The following argument is sound I believe, but it comes with a price tag as well.
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So, let us pretend that I am on a panel with some theists, whose job it is is to promote the idea of a God. That being the scenario then, and here is how I would proceed.
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Now, I have to convince a body of atheists and those impartial to the idea of God, that this God does in fact exist beyond any reasonable doubt whatsoever. I would want my case to be irrefutable and undeniable.
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In a court of law one has to produce some evidence or some argument to promote his case. And, in the case of God we must agree that no evidence of an empirical nature is of any good consequence to an impartial jury. There simply are no facts or incidents from history that will suffice to prove the existence of God. It is all hearsay or questionable or tainted evidence. All of the evidence can be argued against and refuted. Doubt will remain. The very idea of Christ having lived, for example, is debatable, so this is not a very good route on which to proceed. Even this business of miracles will do us no good. Miracles, in a modern scientific world simply do not occur; it is not logical or reasonable to assume that they do. It is simply against the rules of nature for miracles to occur. Ask Mr. David Hume the philosopher and he will tell you the same thing - they are delusions and products of the mind and no more. So what are we left with then? We are left with rational discourse and logic and the nature of ideas and the power of the human mind to reason and nothing more. We will have to be like the rationalist philosophers, Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza. We need to become a professional believer in ideas and logic and in the very idea of God itself if we are going to make any significant progress in our case.
Materialism and Idealism
As you know, there are two types of philosophers; there are the idealists and there are the materialists. Atheists are materialists and believe that only matter counts and that God cannot exist because He is only an idea; He is a product of the mind and He is no more. But, He does exist as an idea and that will not be an area of dispute. Ideas are existent things, even though they are not material things and cannot be seen or otherwise experienced in a sensory way.
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So, logically then we have to construct some kind of an argument that will put the idea on the same level as that of something material; something that we can feel and touch and see; we need to legitimize idealism for the materialist and to make him accept it for what it is. An idea is more than something which exists soley in the mind.
The inherent quality of an idea
An immediate problem of course is that the jury will quickly realize that ideas are formed in the mind and are therefore just aspects of something material or are simply, extended matter. Well, that is the key isn't it? That Idea is really just some attribute of matter itself I mean? Although you cannot see an idea or perceive it and deal with in any tangible way, you can at least experience it, so that means it does in fact exist. Ideas are things. Ideas can be subjects and objects; and they can exist alone and be entities unto themselves. Thus, God Himself can be an idea and therefore just another form of matter. If something exists in whatever form, whether as an ideal or even as something more concrete, it must ultimately be measureable. So, an idea is just another form of matter, just as mist or vapour is another form of water, which is something that we can see. All matter and all ideas consume space and are not space. We are simply dealing with different manifestations of the same thing;
Driving the case home
Now, you have to cater to the materialists who are still going to be skeptical; you have to win them over and you have to produce the slam dunk and the home run as it were. And, what we do is to use their materialism to our advantage and to win our case. In the above example of using water and vapour that is what we have attempted to do. Friends, there really is no such thing as a difference between idealism and materialism - they are exactly the same thing. Even an idea, closely examined, will contain elements of materialism; and idea will occupy space as I mention above. If we had the technology we could prove that beyond any reasonable doubt. But, we do not actually need any real measuring technology to prove our case beyond a reasonable doubt. We simply need to produce as evidence for the jury, an idea. An existent idea. We will even want to produce the Entity and display him in a court of philosophical law if need be. And, we can do that and do it without sophisticated instruments. God does in fact exist - He is all things at all times, including ideas and all other forms of matter. And, this is how we bring the materialists on board; we simply prove to them that God exists as an idea because once we show what an idea really is then acceptance of God is a natural outcome of belief of the nature of ideas.
Nature as God - convincing the Pantheists
But, there is still danger here because we will have an argument from the Pantheists as well. These are the people who see God in all things. Nature is God and that is a very good argument indeed. So, the Pantheists will not be so easily swayed. We have to bring them on board as well. Friends, we have already lured them in by our above argument, even if they appear skeptical. God is all things all at the same time; He is nature and He is idea and matter simultaneously. He is truly supreme and omnipotent. And, that is so because He is everything at once and is most certainly found in nature. Nature is simply that grand expression that describes all to us. For within nature is God and God is manifested in the idea and in matter itself. So, God must exist because there is nothing greater than nature itself ( the Ontological Argument ) which is just everything that we can see and not see all at the same time. We need to ascribe a name to this magnificent creation or manifestation and that name is God.
What is God?
What is God? Yes, Friends, I ask what is God, not who is God because God is not a person or some anthropomorphic creation or idea. God just is. And, God must be, otherwise nothing would exist at all, no matter and no idea. Logically, God has to exist, but God is not a man or a woman as we think Him to be. You have to ask youself this question: who or what has the capability of producing something like an idea and matter, space and time -things which naturally exist;
.The Role of Consciousness and Epistemology
and the true definition of idea;
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First of all you have to realize that none of these things exist without consciousness; you would not be able to perceive or think about anything let alone a god. But, you do have consciousness and that is your ability to know. And, how do you know? You know by the idea of the thing, that is how. Nothing is meaning without thought or consciousness. A thing needs the ability to know itself before it can know anything else. And, it acquires this ability through God or idea. God is the source of consciousness. Now, thought in itself is not meaning; it is the messenger or the vehicle of meaning. Thought is like language; it is the purveyor of meaning. So, what has all of this got to do with God? Well, the answer is of course just about everything. Do you think that thought and meaning just happened without a cause - that matter came to togther and organized and began to think about objects in space and even to think about itself? What makes you think that man is so special that he gave himself the ability to think and to create ideas about everything? Where did these ideas come from? The human animal is a delicate device indeed and he is likened to his creator, which is in fact, God; God the idea and producer of even more ideas. And, the only way for man to perceive and to know is through the mechanism of idea. God is idea and idea is God. God the idea is manifest in man. Matter cannot know, but idea can. A materialist thinks that idea is the fruit of matter. But, how can this be if the idea itself has the ability to let you know what your circumstance is? Ideas cannot be known unless they are experienced and a brain composed of matter cannot produce an idea unless that idea is presented to it in the first place. So, here we encounter a great fallacy of the materialists; they think that their brains are producing ideas for them when in fact, it is not capable of doing so without first being exposed to the idea. And, that is the role of God or idea to affect that capability. God the infinite source of all ideas is the origin of these things. But, we also know that idea and God occupies space; it is manifest in some form that we cannot see; yet it exists and as we state above, idea is really just another form of matter. So, the materialist should know that there is no difference between matter and idea. But, there is more to the issue than this: Idea is superior to matter because it can be no other way. Ideas must necessarily exist in time and have done so for an eternity. Eternity is infinity and infinity is idea. And, idea is the same thing as God. God has existed for all time and is eternity and infinity and is Idea; a form of matter and is something which is not divisible as we know. That is why ideas are eternal and can be discovered; they really do exist on their own. So, it appears as if the philosopher Plato was right all along when he talked about the Forms and ideals.
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On the indivisibilty of matter
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Friends, we are not finished our argument just yet. For, there will still be the detractors as you may surmize. And, where would these detractors come from you may enquire? They will come from those non-believers who say that matter is not divisible; matter always was and always will be; it cannot be destroyed. We believe this fact to be true which we state above, but we must use this fact to our advantage;
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The primacy of all is idea of course as we have suggested above and it can be no other way. Friends, the human mind cannot perceive infinity, although this thing does exist, because it must. The only reason it cannot be perceived is because no one has experienced it. And, the only thing that has experienced it is Idea or God and that is because these things exist for all time. But, we know that ideas can be created and spring to life when thought about - they just need to be discovered, and in fact, they are waiting in abundance to be discovered. Perhaps it is time to give the serious doubter more proof of the matter. Friends, eternity and infinity exist. That means that whatever you are thinking about at this very moment has been thought about an infinite number of times in the past. Any idea that you have ever thought of or will think of has already been thought about, infinitely. So, why would you even bother to question the very idea of the origin of an idea or thought, or for that matter, anything at all? All things exist and only await discovery by you, and that includes God and idea - any idea. You cannot formulate or produce an idea because that has already been accomplished for you; it only awaits your discovery. That is the importance of the idea itself; that is the root of its paramount nature. None of us is capable of going back in time and discovering the very beginning of time and space. But, something is and that something is God, God the idea.
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Why God created man and woman
and the opposites
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Well, this is the final test and proof my friends, proof of the existence of God. God created man and woman; two different things which are attracted to one another. And, it is the same thing with idea and matter as well. They must both exist for either one to exist; they are each other's meaning and reason for existence. Man and woman need to come together just as idea and matter need to come together; they are both aspects of the same thing. What good would an idea be if it could not produce something through matter? Its raison d'etre would come to an end. And, that is why God or idea produced man and matter. But, He did not actually produce anything since nothing can be created from nothing. He simply changed the form of things so that all would comprehend. Idea is in charge of consciousness because if it was not then it could not know itself. And, knowing is the purpose of life. To know life is to know God or Idea, for they are precisely the same thing. You cannot talk to matter as matter, but you can talk to an idea which is simply a different form of matter and an idea has the ability to communicate with you as well. That is why God made matter so versatile as to promote understanding and meaning. God in His wisdom did that.
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Idea and Matter and God has always existed for all time just like vapor and ice have always existed. Friends, the clues are all around us, they just need to be discoverd. It is no sense having a tool if you are not going to do something with it now is there? Think of God and idea as manager; they are the creators of things; all imaginable things.
Summing up:
Implicit in my above statement is that idea came before matter, even though matter and idea necessarily need each other, and are in fact, different manifestations of the same thing - think of the water vapor and ice analogy. But, one of them had to come first, even though it is hard to argue that one came before the other since they need each other for their existence. An idea can do all things; it can even produce matter, and all it is really doing is producing itself anyway.
. I think you have to agree that thinking life in its various forms is just different forms of consciousness or knowing, or different manifestations of ideas. And, at base of knowing is the idea. And, since none of us agrees that something can be created out of nothing then surely the idea must have existed for all time and is the base of all knowledge and even consciousness itself. How would matter come to know itself without an idea? Did matter come alive one day and decide to create an idea? I think not.
So that is how I would construct my argument and prove that God exists. He must exist since He is the same thing as idea and idea has existed for all time as anyone can plainly see. If there was no infinity then life as we comprehend it would be an absurdity. We do not believe in magic, but we can believe in God now that we know what He is.
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The problem of dying consciousness
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Everlasting life is the message of the Bible and of God
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Friends, one day we must all die and with our death goes our consciousness and understanding and meaning. When we die we lose our contact with reality and our conscious association with matter. When we are born we become organized, thinking matter and that is what we are. That is what life is. Life is the ability to know that you are alive and as I have shown in my above argument we know all of these things through the medium of the idea - the idea gives expression to life. Life is like living the dream for life is a dream or an interlude form certain death. When we die the lights go out as it were. But, as matter we never really die of course, we are simply transformed and dispersed. But, just as there is eternity and infinity then we will be again; all things are possible within the confines of infinity and that is the beauty of idea or God to tell us these things. That is the beauty of God, of God the Idea. Dear friends, I mentioned at the outset that there was a price to be paid for knowledge. You may be knowledgeable in the knowing of your existence and your fate by understanding Idea and what it means and from whence it comes. But, now you must realize as well that life is nothing more than a dream or a diversion from death and can be nothing else. For when you die your life and your reality dies the same death and you live in a state of death or non-life or non-consciousness. You are put to sleep for who knows how long; there is no guarantee as to the length of your absence from this thing that we know as life. But, rest assured that you will be put to sleep and lose consciousness in the process. Losing consciousness means that your atoms are being dispersed and reassigned as it were. You will be disorganized and will not be able to think or comprehend anything at all. This thing called life will be no more and it might as well have been a dream for all that it is worth. For when you are asleep what do you feel? You feel a lack of consciousness and you are in a state of not knowing. And, that is what happens at death; it is a constant state of not knowing; it is just another form of dream that life is. For life is the fantasy escape or dream state that death is not. For just as matter has many different forms so it is with consciousness as well. Your matter may well be dispersed, but it is the job of infinity and of idea to make it all happen again for you. They together will organize things for you and make you conscious once again. It may take an eternity, but it will happen again, and again.
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