Using critcal thinking to prove that there is a God?

Question

Okay here are the five questions used in critical thinking. And I need your help answering the last four questions....
1. The first one is what am I being asked to believe?
Answer: That there is a God
These are the ones I need help answering
2. What evidence is provided for this assertion or belief?
Answer:
3. Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence?
Answer:
4. What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives?
Answer:
and 5. What conclusions are most reasonable?
Answer

These answers can be subjective or factual I am just trying to understand a wide belief and trying to appy the critical thinking method I learned in class to do so. Thank you guys!

Answer 1

2: The Bible
3: That it is a work of fiction written by religious zealots in the Bronze Age
4: Well you already have so little it is obvious that it isn't believable.
5: There is no god.

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

2. Only subjective and anecdotal evidence can be provided coupled with an internal feeling that there should be a creator and a purpose for the universe and us. No hard objective evidence can be provided.

3. Anecdotal evidence is based on individual interpretation of unproven events and the interpretation can be in error. Internal feelings express a lack of knowledge and a void which we try o fill by any means possible. In reality it may just be that there is no understandable answer.
Evaluation of the motives of the people disseminating the evidence could suggest political manipulation rather than factual reporting.

4. Access to source documents, eye witness accounts etc would help to verify the basis of the stories but the subsequent interpretation has to be evaluated based solely on the source documents. Any objective proof would establish the case but no objective positive proof exists and the negative assertion is impossible to prove in an evidential manner.
5. The only conclusion possible is that the case is not proved and in the absence of proof the existence of God cannot be asserted. It is equally impossible to prove that God does not exist any more than it is possible to prove that the yeti does not exist.

I like the approach but not sure that it would ever sway a closed mind. Unfortunately they proliferate on both sides of the debate.

Answer 4

2. Once you get past all the rhetoric (e.g., question-begging arguments like "Creation must have a Creator"--don't we need to know that there's a Creator before we can conclude that the universe is a Creation?), the proposed evidence for God can usually be classified into three general categories: Personal spiritual experiences (and other subjective feelings, impulses, convictions, etc.), extraordinary events ("miracles"), and the assertion of supposed authorities (people and texts).

3. Yes. Personal spiritual experiences can be explained naturalistically as psychological and neurological phenomena. Extraordinary events often have mundane explanations, and the ones that don't generally give no compelling reason to believe that the best explanation is supernatural. And authorities on this subject, such as the Bible and Church fathers, are not demonstrably infallible and most people consider them to have made mistakes at varying times.

4. The only real alternative is that there is no God, and there isn't any "additional evidence" that supports this, in the same way that there is no additional evidence supporting the idea that there's an invisible teapot orbiting Neptune. It's just the default state to disbelieve this extraordinary claim. However, one could argue that since God is supernaturalistic, the entire body of evidence supporting naturalism (e.g., the consistency and uniformity of nature, the absence of reliable evidence for supernatural phenomena, the psychological and sociological explanations for why humans would fabricate supernaturalism, etc.) helps us come to the conclusion that the proposed evidence is better explained by naturalism than by God. (Though, of course, this is a false dichotomy in that it is perfectly possible for the supernatural to exist, without God existing; what I'm pointing out is that any evidence for naturalism is necessarily an evidence against God, not that any evidence for supernaturalism is evidence for God.)

5. The most reasonable conclusion seems to be that the existence of God is implausible, based on the fact that enormous efforts have been made to try to prove God for millennia, yet all the evidence provided thus far have been grossly lacking; and that there is a better explanatory paradigm (naturalism) that can more usefully and consistently account for the evidence in question.

Answer 5

2. What evidence is provided for this assertion or belief?
Answer: Living things in incredible diversity.
3. Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence?
Answer: Yes. That life started by accident.
4. What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives?
Answer: Scientists would have to prove it was an accident by repeating the accident in an experiment and creating living things out of nothing.
and 5. What conclusions are most reasonable?
Answer: That it is not possible for humans to create life; therefore life was made in a process beyond human comprehension. You can call it God if you like.

Answer 6

2. The concept of Right and wrong

C.S.Lewis was probably one of the most brilliant minds in England during the twentith century. In 1942, at the height of WWII, he wrote an essay entitled:

"Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe"

In it he shows that the ideas of right and wrong or good and evil are inate to mankind. If this were not so, then the whole point of opposing Hitler was worthless. The whole concept of blame is irrelevent.

What is behind that concept of Right and Wrong:

The individule? Hardly! Hitler said that the Holocost was good.

Society? not that either. Germany stood behind what Hitler was doing. Lewis shows that cultures do not have different Moral values. ( There is no culture that honours a liar, or says that stealing is good. They may say that a man may have one or several wives but they do not say that adultry and rape are good) I could go on and on but I think you see the point.


Religion? 9/11 proves that that is not necessirily the case.

Evolution? If so, can it be that in 1,000,000 years from now, we will have evoled a different concept of right and wrong? I don't think so and neither does any thinking person.

So what is behind that concept of Right and Wrong.

I call that thing, person, force (Whatever name you want to give it) --God--

3.Other ways to interpert the evidence

a) Ignore it

b) Try to find something outside ourselves to evaluate this "condition". Problem, there is nothing else outside of us that we know of that can help us; science cannot, animals cannot

c) other people. Problem they are also under the same Law of Right and Wrong as we are.

4. The one place that we can look at totally is within ourselves. The one place where we find a set of laws (Morality) is within us.
This set of laws is above any human control.
It is impossible for us to really try to analyze morality without using the concept of Right and wrong, but if we use that concept, we are then back where we started.

5. I'll leave that to you

Hope that helps,

Bryan

Answer 7

2. What evidence is provided for this assertion or belief?
Answer: Your existence.
3. Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence?
Answer: None
4. What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives?
Answer: No
and 5. What conclusions are most reasonable?
Answer: "All of Heaven and Earth declare that there is a God and that He is a righteous God." Science proves to us that we were designed by an intelligent Creator.

Answer 8

1. The first one is what am I being asked to believe?
Answer: That God exists

These are the ones I need help answering
2. What evidence is provided for this assertion or belief?
Answer: There is no evidence to support this assertion.

3. Are there alternative ways of interpreting the evidence?
Answer: There is no evidence.

4. What additional evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives? There is no evidence.

5. What conclusions are most reasonable?
Answer The assertion is false.

Answer 9

If you are really interested in wheter or not there is a God, you should read "The Wonder of The World: A Journey from Modern Science to the Mind of God" written by Roy Abraham Varghese.

In this book Varghese uses to principles of logic and clear thinking to examine this often troubling question. Maybe you can buy the book or just check it out from a local library. This book will most certainly provide you with all of the technical aspects of these questions.

If you want to buy the book, go to www.amazon.com, and search for this book using the title and make sure that you specify the search in books.(On the left side of the search bar).

I hope you are successful in what you are trying to do.

Answer 10

1. You are being asked to Submit to the will of Allah Swt, and accept the religion of Islam, with no other diety accept ALLAH. ( God ) (Islamic Monotheism ).
2. there are tons of evidences- The creation itself- a painting has an artist, a creation has a creator. For more on this go to www.harunyahya.com Also, check out www.islamicmiracles.com , as well as miraclesofquran.com , and www.quranscience.com
3. Only ways are to accept, believe, read and understand the Quran/ Religion of Islam through the authentic works of the prophets and Islamic scholars. Quran is first, other works come next.
4. The evidences are self explanatory, and if you want to put it in the simplest form, are as easy as 1+1= 2 . Once you read, the evidence is in itself. Islam gives you a religious view with science even to back it up as well. Glory of Islam.
5. Conclusions are what are in the Holy book of ALLAH SWT ( Quran ). Islamic Monotheism, Ways of living/Thinking, Actions, and how to respond to different things and actions in life.

Answer 11

Good questions. Apply them to evolution too.

2) Personal experience - too many events that I've witnessed to account here.
3) One or two events yes, but there are too many to discount all of them.
4) Another mechanism that can explain away these events.
5) There is an undetectable power at work.

You cannot prove God exists or does not exist - no amount of evidence will convince someone who has already decided He does not exist.