God Exists

Thanks Pro. Let's dive right in Argument from Prophecy Pro says God told us the Jews would get Israel back, before it happened. So, God must exist, because no one else could have known. I feel this isn't a good argument. There's various ways prophecy can be fulfilled without any divine intervention. Retrodiction, vagueness, inevitably, and self fulfilling prophecy. The prophecy described by Pro fits in the category of self fulfilling prophecy. It is written and the Jews strive to complete it. They want their land back and think God will help them. They clearly would've acted to fulfill it. A God is not needed to explain this. Even if said argument is true, I don't see how it proves God. Why not take this as an argument for the existence of psychics? Why not think the author had psychic fits and mistook them for revelations from God? Just because we can't think of any other way for a prophecy to be fulfilled, doesn't mean it's God. It would be an argument from ignorance. I can't find any evidence that shows the quote by Newton is real. His citation was from Al Hamishmar, a Jewish newspaper founded in the 40s [http://www.jpress.org.il...]. This is hardly an authority. I ask Pro give the contemporary evidence from Newton, instead of a middle man source. This argument fails. Quantum Consciousness Evidence has challenged the idea of consciousness collapsing a wave function. For example, physicist Max Tegmark showed the the brain is too large and too hot to be a quantum device [http://space.mit.edu...]. Tegmark said This conclusion disagrees with suggestions by Penrose and others that the brain acts as a quantum computer, and that quantum coherence is related to consciousness in a fundamental way. So, what breaks the wave function? Michael Nauenberg in a paper saying a conscious collapse is a misunderstanding of QM said ..I think that it is not right to tell the public that a central role for conscious mind is integrated into modern atomic physics.... The only 'observer' which is essential in orthodox practical quantum theory is the inanimate apparatus which amplifies the microscopic events to macroscopic consequences. Of course this apparatus, in laboratory experiments, is chosen and adjusted by the experiments. In this sense the outcomes of experiments are indeed dependent on the mental process of the experimenters! But once the apparatus is in place, and functioning untouched, it is a matter of complete indifference - according to ordinary quantum mechanics - whether the experimenters stay around to watch, or delegate such 'observing' to computers [http://journalofcosmology.com...] Nauenberg in the paper also quotes other physicists who agree with this. Richard P. Feynman (Nobel Prize, 1965): Nature does not know what you are looking at, and she behaves the way she is going to behave whether you bother to take down the data or not (Feynman et al., 1965). Murray Gellmann (Nobel Prize, 1969): The universe presumably couldn't care less whether human beings evolved on some obscure planet to study its history; it goes on obeying the quantum mechanical laws of physics irrespective of observation by physicists (Rosenblum and Kuttner 2006, 156). John A. Wheeler: Caution: "Consciousness" has nothing whatsover to do with the quantum process... (Wheeler, 1983). I will add another quote Victor Stenger : The overwhelming weight of evidence, from seven decades of experimentation, shows not a hint of a violation of reductionist, local, discrete, nonsuperluminal, non-holistic relativity and quantum mechanics - with no fundamental involvement of human consciousness other than in our own subjective perception of whatever reality is out there. [http://www.colorado.edu...] Even if Pro's argument is 100% accurate, there is still no reason to assume an ultimate consciousness. Because in quantum mechanics the phenomenon known as "retro-causaliy" is observed [http://arxiv.org...][ http://popsci.com...]. So, even if it's true that consciousness needs to break wave functions, it's true that an effect can happen before the cause. We could be the cause of the wave function collapse, but the effect of the broken wave function can happen before the cause. The argument is refuted. Solar Eclipses Pro's argument has an unproven assumption. He assumes a solar eclipse outside Earth is so improbable, it must be divine. However, there's an amazing number of planets out there, no one knows the odds. So what are the odds of the moon and sun appearing nearly the same size from Earth? No one knows. [http://earthsky.org...] This argument is an argument from ignorance. Because Pro can't think of why the moon is this size, it must be supernatural. This is a logical fallacy. While we have a unique type of solar eclipse, other planets do have solar eclipses [http://curious.astro.cornell.edu...]. If we had a different type of solar eclipse, religious books would use those instead. If we didn't have solar eclipses at all, then religious books wouldn't mention them at all. Ultimately, this is just a Brian's paradox, but not a good argument. The argument is refuted. Problem of Evil The problem of evil is common and straightforward. 1. If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect. 2. If God is omnipotent, then God has the power to eliminate all evil. 3. If God is omniscient, then God knows when evil exists. 4. If God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil. 5. Evil exists. 6. If evil exists and God exists, then either God doesn't have the power to eliminate all evil, or doesn't know when evil exists, or doesn't have the desire to eliminate all evil. C. Therefore, God doesn't exist. [http://plato.stanford.edu...] Temporal minds This argument comes from DDO user Rational_Thinker9119 in one of his debates. 1. If God exists he is/ has a functioning atemporal mind 2. Mental processing is required for a functioning mind 3. Temporal duration is required for processing 4. A functioning atemporal mind cannot exist C. God does not exist. Premise one is accepted by the definition of God. Premise two is evident in the definition of a mind. The element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought. [http://oxforddictionaries.com...] A mind needs to have dynamic information. Otherwise it's just static. However, if static information are things such as books, which we wouldn't call a mind. Mental processing requires changes to occur. This doesn't mean such a mind changes things about itself, just change from one thought to the next. In order for change to occur, time must be present. If we go from thought A to thought B, there needs to be a state of before thought B. However, we don't have that. Let's assume we have change A, goes to > B, goes to, > C, goes to > D The problem is, this means we have time. We have a present (state D) a past (A,B,C) and possibly a future with state D or another state. Thus, a functioning mind can't exist timelessly, therefore God doesn't exist. Back to Pro.