There are tens of proofs for God's existence. These have been recorded for centuries and are easy to look up. However, this subject is ultimately one of personal belief, since our possession of free-will mandates that it be possible to put forth arguments (fallacious or not) against every one of the proofs.
Here are a few.
1) Teleological Argument: The universe has definite design, order, and arrangement which cannot be sufficiently explained outside a theistic worldview. From the complexities of the human eye to the order and arrangement of cosmology, the voice of God is heard. God's existence is the best explanation for such design. God is the designer.Is there evidence against Evolution
God's wisdom seen in His creations
2) Anthropic Principle: The laws of the universe seem to have been set in such a way that stars, planets and life can exist. Many constants of nature appear to be finely tuned for this, and the odds against this happening by chance are astronomical.
3) Sensus divinitatus: The innate sense of the divine exists within all people. People and cultures of all time have, by nature, sensed a need to worship something greater than themselves. No ancient society ever existed that did not believe in a supernatural power.
4) Tradition: There are events in human history which cannot be explained without God. Many people have their subjective stories that bend them in the direction of theism, but there are also historical events such as the Giving of the Torah to over two million people at Mount Sinai, which are underpinnings for the belief in God.
5) Pascal's Wager: Belief in God is the most rational choice due to the consequences of being wrong. If one were to believe in God and be wrong, there would be no consequences. However, if one were to deny God and be wrong, the consequences are eternally tragic. Therefore, the most rational choice is not agnosticism or Atheism, but belief in God.
6) Logic. Why is there reality rather than nothing? Aside from God's creating it, there are only five options:
a) The universe is eternal and everything has always existed.
- Even atheists have abandoned this possibility, especially because it would violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
b) Nothing exists and all is an illusion. There is no reality. There is only nothing.
- This possibility, it should be obvious, is completely self-defeating. In order to even make such a proposition, the subject has to exist in some sense. If all is an illusion, where did the illusion come from? Even the solipsist, who does not believe in the existence of other minds, has to explain the genesis of his own mind.
c) The universe created itself. This is the idea that the universe and all that is in it did not have its origin in something outside itself, but from within.
- Like with the previous two, this makes a logical absurdity. It would be like creating a square triangle. It's impossible. A triangle by definition cannot be square. So creation cannot create itself as it would have to pre-date itself in order to create. The pre-dated form would then need a sufficient explanatory cause, ad infinitum.
d) Chance created the universe. The odds of winning the lottery are not very good; but given enough time, everyone will win. While the odds of the universe coming into existence are not very good, given enough time, it could happen.
- This option is a dishonest sleight of hand that, like "survival of the fittest," amounts to nothing, because it implies that "chance" itself has quantitative causal power.
The word "chance" refers to possibilities. It does not have the power to cause those possibilities. It is nonsense to speak of chance being the agent of creation of anything, since chance is not an agent. "What are the real chances of the universe being created by chance? Not a chance. Chance is incapable of creating a single molecule, let alone an entire universe. Why not? Chance is no thing. It is not an entity. It has no being, no power, no force. It can effect nothing because it has no causal power within it. It is a word which describes mathematical possibilities which, by the curious flip of the fallacy of ambiguity, slips into the discussion as if it were a real entity with real power, the power of creativity." (R.C. Sproul, Not a Chance. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1999.)
e) The universe is created by nothing. Simply put, nothing created the universe.
- The problem here is that it is either a repetition of option "a" (the universe is eternal) or fails due to the irrationality of "d." In our current universe, the law of cause and effect cannot be denied by sane people. While we often don't know what the cause of some effect is, this does not mean that there was no cause. When we go to the doctor looking for an explanation for the cause of our neck pain, we don't accept the answer "There is no cause. It came from nothing."
Now, the other side of the Question: why might people notbelieve in God?
1) Peer influence. In high school, for example, the one or two religious believers in a class may be subject to ridicule.
2) Convenience; desires. No one wants "bothersome" rules, or limitations to their personal pleasure. We see how lack of self-discipline has led to epidemic obesity, drunkenness, divorce rates, violence etc.
3) Lack of proper information. People have inaccurate notions about God, religion and belief. They've picked up tidbits, jokes, and "sound-bites," and on such solid authority they dismiss the entire topic.
4) Unfortunate experiences. Many have had personal hardships, or a harsh religious upbringing or education, and as a consequence may retain an unhappy feeling towards belief, without realizing that emotions and proofs are two different things.
5) Many think that science, and specifically Evolution, have proved that there is no God. They don't comprehend that even if Evolution was an unquestionable fact, it would not automatically follow that God isn't there. They also seem unaware that there are a significant number of highly-qualified scientists who do not believe in Evolution.
6) Intellectual laziness. Many people have simply never delved into the subject, to see if God's existence can be convincingly demonstrated.
7) Stereotyping. People call us "religious nuts," "Bible-thumpers," etc.; so the average layperson may get a negative feeling toward all belief, not realizing that he/she should first look into the existence of God in principle, before necessarily looking into religion.
You belive read the bibleAnswer:There is no proof (in the scientific sense) that any deity of any religion exists. Most "proofs" brought forward contain fallacious arguments that cannot be used as proof.
Yes, no-one has found any proof that god exists. Not one scrap of evidence.
Some philosophers who have presented proofs for the existence of God include St. Thomas Aquinas (via the Five Ways), René Descartes (via his ontological argument), and G.W. Leibniz (via the cosmological argument). These proofs vary in their premises and reasoning, but each aims to demonstrate the existence of a higher being through logical deduction.
I don't think there is. Science can only prove what can be observed.
I'm do not see that there are major differences on proofs for the existence of God between Roman Catholics and Protestants. Most proofs originated by Catholics are fine with Protestants, and vice versa. If the subject is really whether or not God exists, that is debated rather vigorously in good sized books right now. For a short but sound and readable proof for God, try the first 5 chapters of Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis
God exists. I am a living evidence for the existence of God. If you know me, you will understand. I am surrounded by lot of negative forces (spirits). I am scolding them daily. I think most of the people or almost all people are hearing my voices as well as evil spirits’ voices everyday. At present all creatures including human beings are living in a miraculous era of God. This is a temporary miracle of God. I am connected to all creatures including human beings and spirits internally by God since year 1950 but I am not a God. I think that all human beings can see what I see, can hear what I hear and even know my thoughts. But thoughts are complicated matter. It needs an explanation. The people who have born in this era cannot realize this miracle because they have born with it. An old brave and honest gentleman aged 85 can explain about this miracle.
St Thomas Aquinas relied on what is known as the Cosmological Argument for the existence of God. He claimed that there were five valid ways to prove God exists, although thre of them are essentially restatements of the same things. Essentially his view was that some contingent beings exist; contingent beings require a noncontingent ground of being (a "necessary thing") in order to exist; therefore a noncontingent ground of being exists. This is not a great deal different to the Ontological Argument. Aquinas' theological positions involved making unprovable assumptions from which to prove the unprovable.
Absolutely! He developed some resounding proofs of God's existence that were used often in Western Philosophy
God can't be seen, measured, weighed, smelled, felt or in any way sampled. All proofs of God's existence are either hearsay, or inferred proofs as in "this world has to have been made by someone"
Nothing Sacred - 1997 Proofs for the Existence of God 1-1 was released on: USA: 18 September 1997
The questions not wheres the proof? It is do you believe?Answer:The proofs used by believers to demonstrate the existence of god are fallacious arguments to non-believers. To be proof in the scientific sense they would have to be repeatable, observable and conducted with a program of triple blind examiners to remove potential biasing of the results. No such tests have been undertaken with verifiable results. The problem is that if you can make a "god" jump through hoops to provide the proof, he isn't much of an omnipotent deity.
People who are unsure if God exists are known as agnostics.