God Exists

Resolutions and Reasons I am perfectly aware of the difference between the title and the resolution, but as a general assumption I believe people are more likely to click on shorter titles. Perhaps I should have clarified the terminology. The statement "believing in God is more reasonable than not believing in God" is equivalent to "we have more reason to believe in God than not to believe in God". Now, what kind of reasons are we asking for?The reasons in question are so called normative reasons, considerations which justify or in some way count in favor of a belief. E.g., the fact that I am sitting in front of a PC gives me reason to believe my electricity bill is going to be higher. Similarly, any argument presented here counts, if successful, as a reason.Thus, my opponents definition and arguments are perfectly acceptable. Divine Hiddenness [1] (1) Necessarily, if God exists, anyone who is (i) not resisting God and (ii) capable of meaningful conscious relationship with God is also (iii) in a position to participate in such relationship. (2) Necessarily, one is at a time in a position to participate in meaningful conscious relationship with God only if at that time one believes that God exists. (3) Necessarily, if God exists, anyone who is (i) not resisting God and (ii) capable of meaningful conscious relationship with God also (iii) believes that God exists. (4) There are (and often have been) people who are (i) not resisting God and (ii) capable of meaningful conscious relationship with God without also (iii) believing that God exists. (5) God does not exist. Usually I am a proponent of the argument from evil, but this time I feel like using arguments not as well known. The Divine Hiddenness Argument is a relatively new argument compared to Ibn Sina's Cosmological Argument (contingency) or Sextus Empiricus (or Carneades, I don't think it is known who came up with it) Problem of Evil. I believe it is in part due to the increasing secularization of our modern, western world why people fell the hiddenness of God a lot more than 2000 years ago.Some people seek for years after the love of God, try out various religions, yet end up with a big void in their life.Many actual believers face religious crises. Sometimes even induced by reasons supporting an argument from evil, too.The German theologian Alfred Buss once said (and I try to translate as accurately as possible)"Honest theology acknowledges that there is no answer to the issue of suffering. Whoever tries to find one is just putting up illusions"[2]Now, I am of course not claiming that all or even many theologians think this way. That would be ridiculous. The point is that in the face of such concessions it is quite understandable why some honest believers loose their faith. Friedrich Nietzsche captured the core of the argument very accurately:"a god who is all-knowing and all-powerful and who does not even make sure his creatures understand his intentions — could that be a god of goodness?"[3] Where does this leave us?It seems (1) should sit quite well with theists. J.L. Schellenberg, the creator of the original Argument from Hiddenness, writes"A perfectly loving God--if those words mean anything--would, like the best human lover, ensure that meaningful contact with herself was always possible for those she loved. [...] The perfectly loving mother or husband or brother or friend will see to it that nothing he or she does ever puts relationship out of reach for the loved one. That is just part of love."[4](2) should be quite obvious. It would be a rather strange thing to say "Jill loves John, therefore John is in a relationship with Jill even though he does not know her". At any rate it would most certainly not be the kind of relationship a truly good God would want to have with humans.Above there are various examples in support of (4). (3) and (5) are inferences, thus the conclusion follows. Physical minds It is no mystery that neuroscience shows us mind-brain dependence. That is to say we know alteration in the structure or chemistry of human brains yields alteration of the mind.The perhaps most drastic example of this is the procedure known as lobotomy [5]. Essentially it was about putting parts of the brain out of action. It was often times used on war veterans who suffered PTSD and was supposed to cure many other mental illnesses as well. Former patients would become very angry very suddenly, sometimes loose a lot of their ability to memorize and generally were not the same person as before.Now this is evidence for mind brain dependence if I've ever seen some. E: The mind is dependent on the brain. I am a naturalist....almost, as I am one of those crazy people who affirms the existence of abstract objects and irreducible moral facts. But I am a naturalist in the here relevant sense, because I believe mind arises from matter.This we might call MN: Metaphysical naturalism about the mind. Now, opposed to this view we have of course Theism. T: Theism, the affirmation of the existence of God as defined in the beginning. The relevant question now is, which is more likely, MN or T, given that E? Let's make a fair assumption and say that T and MN are prima facie equally likely. This assumption will of course be shifted in favor of one or the other side depending on the success of my and my opponents other arguments.The argument can now be formalized as follows: 1) E is known2) T is not more or not much more intrinsically probable than N3) Pr(E | MN) > Pr(E | T)4) Therefore, other evidence held equal (or only slightly favoring T), T is probably false. The crucial part now is to argue for 3).Mind-brain dependence is of course logically consistent with T, but this is an evidential, not a logical argument.MN on the other hand entails E, it is inconsistent with the existence of any disembodied mind. That means Pr(MN | E)=1. For theism, entailing the existence of at least one disembodied mind and thus providing at least antecedent reason to expect non-physical human minds, the probability can still be high, but it could never be 1, Pr(E | T) < 1.Thus, theism is probably false. [1]http://www.patheos.com...[2]Karsten Huhn, Wie kann Gott das zulassen? (How coulod God let this happen?), p.46[3]Howard-Snyder, Daniel; Paul K. Moser (2001). Introduction to Divine Hiddenness. Divine Hiddenness: New Essays. New York: Cambridge University Press.[4]http://infidels.org...[5]https://en.wikipedia.org...