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A Moral Argument for God's Existence


Wade8888

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1) If God does not exist, Objective moral values and duties do not exist.

2) If Evil exists, Objective moral values and duties exist.

3) Evil Exists.

4) Therefore Objective moral values and duties do exist.

5) Therefore God exists.

6) Therefore God is the locus of all objective moral values and duties.

 

In anticipation of a rebuttal trying to claim point 1 is a logical fallacy, I'll say this:

I don't believe it is a logical fallacy. Without God, you only have Physics, and Physics says nothing about good and evil. From a physics-only perspective there is no morality outside of God, which is exactly what point 1 says.

Now we know evil exists, we need only point to murder and abortion for evidence of evil, thus the Good God must exist for evil to exist. In other words, Point 3 being true proves points 2 and 1 being true. We must all agree that Murder is objectively wrong, therefore objective good and objective evil do in fact exist. But Physics alone cannot explain the origin of objective goodness and objective evil. Thus point 5 is true as a necessary consequence of point 1 being true.

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Wade, I think your logic here is not very logical. But you did come to the right conclusion. In defense of your reasoning I'll say this. You're not the 1st person who came to realize God must exist because the devil (evil) exists. When I was lost in intellectual atheism I first became convinced of Satan because I saw how evil had harmed people I was meeting. So if Satan & evil exist I reasoned God must exist as well. And I've read similar testimonies from other Christians. But nowadays, with our breakthroughs in science that allow us to see the microscopic smallness of things, as well as telescopes that show us how the universe is working in perfect motions that we couldn't see 40 yrs ago, those facts are the best objective argument for God that I know of. Once you reach this point a personal experience of & with God usually follows and then you know your premise 1. (above) is false to start with. But your conclusion is true. God is who gave us the moral values, and since we've done away with some, in the last century, it's easy to see that evil has resulted from that. Moral values and duties are actually for our good and God knows that. They even benefit our pursuits in the sciences. As we tamper with the genes of mankind more bad will come of this than good. But it may take 100 yrs to see this. Moral values says don't tamper with genes, but we do it. Finally moral values help us have better relationships even with God. So yes God is good and so are the morals He taught us. 

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I'm not saying that God exists because of Evil. I'm saying that the existence of Evil obviously proves Objective morality exists, and Objective Morality could only exist if God exists.

 

Consciousness is not a physical property, in my view.

 

From a physics perspective, Consciousness is an emergent property. If You punch a bag of sand, it follows Newton's laws. If you punch a human being, they react with a counter-attack, or even a combination of several counter-attacks.

 

From the perspective of creative origins, consciousness is imparted at conception, and grows with maturity. I'm 38 years old, and I can actually remember the first time I said, "ma ma, momma," and before that I was not consciously aware of language.

 

The fact that there is a God, and God exists as an eternal Mind, shows that Minds' consciousness is not a physical property; Minds are emergent. The Mind of God is a self-contained reality, and the Transcendence of God imparts consciousness and wisdom to us conscious creatures. The Transcendence fo God also is what allows the existence of the Trinity, or more correctly stated "Godhead", as there is some evidence in, Revelation 5:6, that there may be as many as 10 members of the Godhead, but Christians only talk about three members of the Godhead. For example, the Holy Spirit is called the "Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding". Well, "Understanding" is the consciousness towards said "Wisdom". Counsel and Might, Knowledge and of the Fear (Reverence) of the LORD. Well, these 6 traits have to do with what you learn, but what you learn has to do with consciousness. So I believe the Transcendence of God is what makes the emergence of Consciousness possible here in the material universe...Otherwise we'd all be robots and nobody would be responsible for their actions.

 

But you see the problem, that "Understanding" is not a physical property, it's an emergent property. If I punch a bag, it moves in the direction punched. If I punch a human, he tries to block and dodge, and tries to counter-attack, because he understands at lightning speed that I am attacking him, and at lightning speed decides to avoid and counter-attack. This is emergence, not physics.

Edited by Wade8888
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14 hours ago, Vince said:

But there is no consciousness without a physical brain.  We can have our appendix removed and not have our consciousness affected.  If we mess wit our brains we can change our consciousness.  

Why do you assume our consciousness is changed because our brain is damaged? 

Could it be that a damaged brain simply causes us to not have the ability to express out consciousness fully to the human observers around us...

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15 hours ago, Vince said:

The definition of consciousness I am going by is:

the quality or state of being aware especially of something within oneself. - Merriam Webster

Brain damage can lead to problems with awareness and alertness, coma's, vegetative states etc.  This affects awareness or consciousness.  I think you may be using consciousness differently.

 

 

We are.. 

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On 1/3/2019 at 5:32 PM, Vince said:

I think you mean absolute moral values instead of objective moral values.  Non believers have objective moral values if they define what the basis for those values are. 

Hi Vince, I would have to disagree with you. Objective morals are the opposite of subjective morals. Objective means 'mind-independent' such that an action will be wrong or right even if nobody thinks so.
Absolute morals on the other hand refer to morals that are 'circumstance independent'. Some have argued that torturing babies for fun is a moral absolute because it always applies. The moral argument doesn't require moral absolutes, it is based on objective moral values and duties so the OP is correct.

Furthermore, I'd say you're wrong that an atheist can objectively ground morals by simply tying their moral standard to some objective measure like wellbeing, because their selection of that particular measure instead of another is still subjective.

Edited by LuftWaffle
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Romans 1 and 2 says God has programmed His Laws into us - this is one reason why we were made in His Image.

This is also why every culture has the same norms in common - lying, stealing, and killing is wrong.

This is also why we are the only creature to have legal systems although we are not the only intelligent creature in this world.

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On 1/1/2019 at 4:32 PM, Wade8888 said:

1) If God does not exist, Objective moral values and duties do not exist.

2) If Evil exists, Objective moral values and duties exist.

3) Evil Exists.

4) Therefore Objective moral values and duties do exist.

5) Therefore God exists.

6) Therefore God is the locus of all objective moral values and duties.

 

In anticipation of a rebuttal trying to claim point 1 is a logical fallacy, I'll say this:

I don't believe it is a logical fallacy. Without God, you only have Physics, and Physics says nothing about good and evil. From a physics-only perspective there is no morality outside of God, which is exactly what point 1 says.

Now we know evil exists, we need only point to murder and abortion for evidence of evil, thus the Good God must exist for evil to exist. In other words, Point 3 being true proves points 2 and 1 being true. We must all agree that Murder is objectively wrong, therefore objective good and objective evil do in fact exist. But Physics alone cannot explain the origin of objective goodness and objective evil. Thus point 5 is true as a necessary consequence of point 1 being true.

3) Just saying evil is not enough we need an example of objective evil. What we think of as evil is subjective and comes from things that we can explain evolutionary and with other means. There is no reason to think that there is an objective evil in our universe.

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On 4/28/2019 at 2:58 PM, Leyla said:

3) Just saying evil is not enough we need an example of objective evil. What we think of as evil is subjective and comes from things that we can explain evolutionary and with other means. There is no reason to think that there is an objective evil in our universe.

If evil isn't real as you say, then what should we do about laws? Do we pretend that rape, murder, child abuse, sex trafficing etc. is bad and incarcerate perpetrators of such acts, or do we let people define right and wrong as they see fit?

Edited by LuftWaffle
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2 hours ago, LuftWaffle said:

If evil isn't real as you say, then what should we do about laws? Do we pretend that rape, murder, child abuse, sex trafficing etc. is bad and incarcerate perpetrators of such acts, or do we let people define right and wrong as they see fit?

We dont want to be killed or hurt because that would either remove us from the gene pool or lower our chance of survival. We dont want the people in our society to be killed or hurt because that would damage the fabric of our society and reduce the chance for survival of our species. There is no objective evil, we are just social animals that evolved to live in groups, and living in groups requires certain rules or mechanism. Stopping destructive people from doing destructive things is simply in our interest and thats why we do it. We dont technically punish people because they are bad, for example if someone is born evil (pedophiles, people with mental illnes that want to kill because of it etc), we only punish people that actually do harm to our society(child rapists, murderes etc) 

Edited by Leyla
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