trl-lib/stack-llama · Is there a god?

Question:

Is there a god?

Answer:

There are two ways of tackling this question.

We can define “god” and then say whether or not it exists;
We can take the existence/non-existence claim itself as the subject, and see what is to be said about its truth value.

I’ll start with (2), which is more amenable for philosophers, because most debates on religion end up being discussions over this issue anyway. The reason we might want to do so is that it allows us to avoid an argument from authority, where someone says “Because God told me.” The argument would still have to deal with why their source should be taken seriously.

It seems pretty obvious to most people that if you ask them whether God exists they will answer “yes”. This raises all sorts of questions about how we know such things, but I won’t go into those here – instead let’s just assume our belief in gods is based upon some kind of evidence or reasoning process, rather than simply acceptance by faith. Some people don’t believe that it even matters whether God exists, since he could act however he likes regardless of his nature. Personally I think that has serious