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Does God exist?

Topics: Religion   Philosophy   God  

Background

The answer to the question "Does God Exist?" is dependent on the meaning of God - God means different things to different people. There is a spectrum of meanings, from the Christian Creator who is the ultimate arbiter of human affairs, through to more abstract conceptions, such as Spinoza's God, who "reveals himself in the harmony of all that exists". Atheists claim God doesn't exist based on both theoretical arguments as well as lack of empirical verifiability.
 
Does God exist?
Logically, if Disagree then Disagree with Must God exist to explain how the universe began?
Possibly, if Agree then Agree with Is God just?
Logically, if Disagree then Disagree with Must God exist to explain complex life forms?
Possibly, if Disagree then Agree with Is the scientific account of the nature of the universe coherent?
Logically, if Agree then Agree with Does life have a meaning?
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Expert Opinions

What's Your TakeOnIt?

Agree
AnswerExpert
Quote
Iconic Philosopher of 20th Century
To pray is to think about the meaning of life. ... To believe in God means to see that the facts of the world are not the end of the matter. To believe in God means to see that life has a meaning.     
01 Jan 1916   Source
Novelist, Essayist, English Professor
There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it JC or Allah, bet it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.     
21 May 2005   Source
United States President 2009-
[My baptism] came about as a choice and not an epiphany; the questions I had did not magically disappear. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side of Chicago, I felt God's spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth.     
16 Oct 2006   Source
Political T.V. Host, Comedian
Religion to me is a bureaucracy between man and God that I don't need. But I'm not an atheist, no.     
16 Feb 2007   Source
Leader of Al Qaeda
All praise is due to Allah, who built the heavens and earth in justice, and created man as a favor and grace for Him. ... and from His law is retaliation in kind: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and the killer is killed. And all praise is due to Allah, who awakened His slaves' desire for the Garden, and all of them will enter it except those who refuse. And whoever obeys Him alone in all of his affairs will enter the Garden, and whoever disobeys Him will have refused.     
08 Sep 2007   Source
Australian Prime Minister, 2007-
You can't simply have, in my own judgment, creation simply being a random event because it is so inherently ordered, and the fact that the natural environment is being ordered where it can properly coexist over time. ... If you were simply reducing that to mathematically probabilities I've got to say it probably wouldn't have happened. ... So I think there is an intelligent mind at work.     
29 Aug 2008   Source
Disagree
AnswerExpert
Quote
Iconic Philosopher of 20th Century
My conclusion [to the question: is there a god?] is that there is no reason to believe any of the dogmas of traditional theology and, further, that there is no reason to wish that they were true. Man, in so far as he is not subject to natural forces, is free to work out his own destiny. The responsibility is his, and so is the opportunity.     
01 Jan 1952   Source
Physicist, Icon of the 20th Century
The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. These subtilised interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions.     
03 Jan 1954   Source
Evolutionary Biologist, Writer, Atheism Activist
God is a delusion. ... Human thoughts and emotions emerge from exceedingly complex interconnections of physical entities within the brain. An atheist in this sense of philosophical naturalist is somebody who believes there is nothing beyond the natural, physical world, no supernatural creative intelligence lurking behind the observable universe, no soul that outlasts the body and no miracles - except in the sense of natural phenomena that we don't yet understand.     
18 Oct 2006   Source
Philosopher
It's not that [theists are] lacking in labels and characteristics to attribute to their gods, it's just that so many of these characteristics contradict each other. To put it simply, not all of these characteristics can be true because one cancels out the other out or a combination of two (or more) leads to a logically impossible situation. When this happens, the definition is no longer coherent or understandable.     
01 Jan 2008   Source

Neutral
AnswerExpert
Quote
3rd United States President
Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.     
01 Jan 1787   Source
Physicist, Icon of the 20th Century
I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of all that exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.     
24 Apr 1921   Source