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Does God exists?

Being an astronomer and an Indian cultural person, many times, I have been asked, if I believe in God?

This is indeed a serious difficulty for belief in God. However, in my opinion, it does not wipe out all the evidence on the other side. Instead, it shows that there’s something we don’t understand. How much do we actually know about what it’s is not as pointless as it appears, that it’s a means to a greater good.

Is belief in God purely psychological?

a. Point of logic: You must establish that a belief is false before you "explain" it as an illusion.

b. Yes, we can magnify our concept of earthly parents, authority figures, creative artists, etc., to arrive at a picture of God. Does this mean there is no God? Or does it mean that parents, rulers, artists, etc., are made in God’s image?

c. Psychological factors can also make someone an atheist. Obvious psychological factors working against belief in God are adolescent rejection of parental authority and desire to be exempted from moral principles.

Some arguments for the existence of God

a. Cosmological argument (St. Thomas Aquinas): Everything in the physical universe is temporary and requires a cause. Either there is an endless chain of temporary things caused by other things, or there is, at the beginning, something that is not temporary and does not require a cause (namely God).

c. Argument from design (Paley): Discovering the orderly universe, especially biological life, we are like someone finding a watch on an uninhabited beach and inferring that a watchmaker exists somewhere. Nothing but intelligent design can explain the order of the universe. (Supposedly demolished by Darwin.)

d. Argument from common consent: Virtually all the human societies that have ever existed have had some concept of deity which, when refined (e.g., by Socrates or Aristotle), comes to resemble the God we know. (And why would evolution produce this?)

posted by Nikhil @ 4:20 PM