The most current philosophical arguments for the existence of God?

[colewd (Bill Cole)]

@misterme987

God would certainly be powerful enough to create life. The question is not whether P(Life|God) > 0, which it certainly is, but whether P(Life|God) >> P(Life|~God). And without a strong understanding of the inner workings of both the natural universe and God’s mind, neither possibility is calculable. We’d need at least a plausible TOE before even attempting to calculate P(Life|~God).

Is what we are observing explainable by random change? Is what we are observing explainable by a mind that is as powerful as most sophisticated mind the exists today?

If you wanted to create a living organism with different chemicals then DNA where should you start?

@misterme987

Personally, I agree that Isaiah 53 is Messianic. But the problem remains that there are alternate interpretations, which weakens it as proof of the Christian God. Furthermore, even if you could show beyond a doubt that all other interpretations are false, it would still be a circular argument, since Isa. 53:11-13 prophesies the resurrection of the Messiah.

Almost every claim has a counter claim. I don’t agree the reasoning is circular as you are simply comparing two pieces of evidence, Isaiah 53 and Acts 8 which were generated at two different times hundreds of years apart and they match. Again any single piece of evidence can be countered with a hypothetical. The total evidentiary picture is what is convincing.

@misterme987

Now that’s a bit problematic because in context these prophecies are referring to individuals from the time of Isaiah. The first prophecy you cite was originally about a child who was born before the Assyrian invasion of Israel (Isa. 7:13-17), and the second was about a king who would deliver Judah from Assyria, that is, Hezekiah (Isa. 8:1-10:19). Although these were later applied to the Messiah by the authors of the New Testament, that was clearly not the original intention, and the NT authors were taking some liberties with the text.

The whole picture of Isaiah is about judgement and hope. The hope is the Messiah. These arguments are cherry picking and do not make sense if you have a complete understanding of the book of Isaiah.

@misterme987

And many Christians and non-Christian scholars would disagree with you about that, and say that it’s about the Maccabean Revolt or Nehemiah. Even among the Christians who think that it prophesies the time of Jesus’ death, there is disagreement over whether it occurred in AD 30 or 33. Because of this, Dan. 9:24-27 is just not a convincing argument for the predictive power of prophecy (since it’s too ambiguous), let alone for the existence of the Christian God.

Again this is more cherry picking. The text says that Messiah will be cut off in the first century. If taken in context the prophecy of Isaiah was available to Daniel the only reasonable explanation is that it is a very compelling prophecy of Jesus.

@misterme987

This is definitely a piece of evidence in favor of Christianity (albeit weak IMO) but it is equally evidence in favor of any other religion with hostile converts.

If it was the only evidence then yes we would not have 2 billion Christians today.

@misterme987

However, Peter does not claim to be an eyewitness. He simply claims that Jesus was resurrected, not that he saw the resurrected Jesus. This is therefore hearsay, which is not valid evidence in a court of law, for good reason. The only eyewitness claims we have in the New Testament that are not hearsay are from Paul and John of Patmos, both of whom only saw Christ in a vision, which weakens their claims somewhat.

We are not in a court of law. We are evaluating documented evidence. Why as the closest disciple to Jesus would he make this claim if he had not witnessed it? How did Paul know that Jesus rose from the dead if the people he got this from had not witnessed it.

@misterme987

Unfortunately, I don’t find the evidence you’ve put forward for the Christian God convincing… sorry. I’m hoping that there are some other Christians here who are well-versed in the actual philosophical arguments for His existence and can explain why they believe.

You have found the possibility of truth in all these arguments. When is enough evidence enough? What convinces you that Christianity is true?