God Exists

My thanks to my opponent for his quick response. I will now attempt to address his concerns: "I'm sorry for any inconvenience, but the Bible is in no way an accurate resource. I see it as a work of fiction." The Bible is likely not an accurate resource on its own, but as you can see by reading my sources, the appearance of God as being concomitant with a pre-existing expression of a divine/primordial force is held by many faith systems the world over. I have merely explained how this expression can make sense. "No, the question is whether such a force exists. Don't get ahead of yourself." Information exists, the passage of information exists, and so to the extent that I refer to the passage of information as the divine/primordial force, it exists. "I feel like life started when just the right chemicals came together and there came the first strand of DNA. Eventually, that DNA became part of some ancient eubacteria which evolved into what we now know. So I think you got off on the wrong track and you are now explaining what God did, not whether it exists." If God is the expression of the passage of information necessary to form the processes necessary to form DNA (or RNA, which preceded it) then God must exist of necessity. The real question is: what is information? If I am correct in assuming that information is the expression of data, and that data, when possessed, informs action, then it would seem to make little sense to differentiate the information exchanging processes in life with those found in non-living nature, except, perhaps, that being living creatures we are inclined to differentiate such processes for our own purposes. "So you are saying that "God" is a metaphor? Well, I would agree. Unfortunately for you, the definition that we agreed upon upon was that God is a being. Therefore, you are arguing for me that there is no existing being that we call God." This, of course, is the best argument against God as I have defined it under this debate, though it does not necessarily refute my claim. Being has multiple meanings. Being may be "1 a : the quality or state of having existence b (1) : something conceivable as existing (2) : something that actually exists (3) : the totality of existing things c : conscious existence : life 2 : the qualities that constitute an existent thing : essence; especially : personality 3 : a living thing; especially : person" [1] No belief system I can recall tends to think of God as a living thing, let alone a single person. Certainly some belief systems worshipped ancestors as individual gods, but even there was the assumption of some force or forces that came before and held greater prestige. I think it would be fair to toss out any definition of ‘being' taken to mean a single person or living thing. By regarding being as applying to something other than a single person or life form, it is possible to argue that God is a ‘being' for the purposes of this debate. The version of God you are probably most familiar with is an omnipresent spirit having omnipotence and omniscience, and being possessed of all good. That version of God arguably still exists, though only if you accept that the concept of spirit is a metaphor for information. Think of it this way: what makes you, you? If, for example, your brain was switched with that of an ape, and the ape held your thoughts and you the ape's, would the ape or the man be you? If you think as I do, you would define the ape as yourself, and the body now occupied by the ape's brain as your possession. Now let us extend this hypothetical scenario further – what if your brain was erased and all the information therein necessary for cognition was stored in a computer? Would the information in the computer be you, or would the thoughtless, mindless brain be you? Once again, there is a sense that it would be better to qualify the information in the computer as yourself, though certainly the concept that what makes you yourself has been wholly removed from anything of yours that was once physical may seem jarring. There is, however, rational cause to value the information over the physical mass that contained it – namely that the information contains the data that gave direction to the physical mass, without which the mass is as good as inanimate. Therefore, to the extent any person exists in a spiritual or true sense, that person exists as information. Remember, the godhead and God in my argument are one in the same – the function and the recognition of the function are comparative by analogy to the mind and the body (though certainly the analogy is poor). The godhead pre-existed life of necessity as the driving force behind all exchanges of any and all information. Information consists of data. Data informs action. Therefore, nothing acts without God. God is omnipotent. Nothing is known that is not God. God is omniscient. No good thought occurs free from God. God is omnibenevolent. God is in all things. God is omnipresent. Of course, God is also all data that informs suffering, though the tendency of life to avoid suffering suggests that God holds a preference for a lack of suffering. This is not a new idea, however, even in Judaism. [2] God, the ‘mind' of the godhead, exists as that information is exchanged within living things that can recognize the process of the godhead in action (though imperfectly through empirical observations of discrete phenomena). Because the recognition event that allowed the function of the godhead to note itself did not occur before life existed to perceive the godhead (by interacting with and recognizing itself), God, as distinct within the godhead, did not exist until such time as life existed to know God. However, as God is defined as that aspect of the godhead experiencing recognition within life, God exists so long as life does as the information being exchanged amongst all living things. Because God exists within living things, God is partially the information transmitted. If spirit is a metaphor for information, then God is spirit. If this spirit then resides in all things (or rather, all things are through this spirit), as I have said, then this spirit or essence, possessing data that informs the actions of all things, is ruler of all things. To the extent that any living thing thinks, it thinks for/through God. [3] Therefore, God is a being that is ruler of all things. "For from him and through him and to him are all things." [4] Romans 11:36. "Brahman is the only truth, the world is illusion, and there is ultimately no difference between Brahman and individual self." [5] "Even if you mean to be setting down a deist point of view, the definition that we agreed upon states that it is the ruler of the universe, which implies that it is not just what happens, but what makes things happen." God, as the first (and continuing) cause of all processes, makes things happen because all causes link back to that first. Provided that the Universe is finite, and that it once existed in a compact and, most importantly, directionless state,[6] no natural process could form that was not a consequence of the first natural process that required that the natural Universe "be." [7] I now humbly turn this debate back over to my opponent. [1] http://www.merriam-webster.com... [2] http://www.tektonics.org... [3] http://www.opednews.com... [4] http://bible.logos.com... [5] http://en.wikipedia.org... [6] http://en.wikipedia.org... [7] http://en.wikipedia.org...