The existence - or lack of - a God is one of humanity's fundamental questions. Since the first birth, the first sunrise, the first death, humans have sought to explain the world around them. The whole of human existence, in the end, comes down to this: Is there a God?
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Don’t We Often See Ourselves In Our Children?
- From Rabbi Jeret
By Rabbi Jeret - Spiritual Leader, Congregation Ner Tamid
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Of course there is a God
When we look in our children's eyes and see ourselves, our values, our family's best hope we KNOW that there is a God who put us here. Who gave us a reason for living. A reason for making a difference on this earth. Who can deny the existence of a higher order?
- cantupoke July 14, 2008 4:21PM
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No 'of course'
I'm sorry, but appealing to your intuitions and your personal experiences i simply not good enough. I give myself a reason for living an a reason to make a difference. I do that with or without the existence of any higher order. Keep on believing, but don't think your belief will convince anyone else just by virtue of your own certainty.
- roy1167
September 4, 2008 10:45AM
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A Better Explanation already Available
We have actual knowledge about how animals came to be and why they show the behaviors they do, especially in relation to reproduction. We also have apparently reliable knowledge of the mechanism of heredity. That contrasts strongly with theological arguments that depend for their rhetorical strength on appealing to the prejudices and ignorance of the Many. Indeed, the Rabbi doesn't suggest anything at all explanatory. In real explanations, one doesn't just say that something came to be with x attribute because it was produced by an agent with the same attribute. That's like arguing that green things are green because they are composed of little green things. Similarly, claiming that man is as he is because he was created by a man-like God doesn't really explain anything; and the Rabbi's reverse move of claiming that the behavior of men allows us to infer the characteristics of God is even more of a stretch.
Of course the scientific explanation for the evolution of parental behavior may be in error. On the other hand, there is at least real evidence for it; and, if it is true, it is an actual explanation instead of an exercise in question begging.
- Jim Harrison
August 31, 2008 3:38PM
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Ass u me
" Assuming that we are correct that we humans are the most complex life-forms created, it is reasonable to assume that the world’s Source is capable of at least as much complexity as we reflect."
If you really believed in god that's the by far the most insulting thing ever said.
We're a tiny spec in our own galaxy and we're the most complex life-form?
We're formed on the ghost of Sagittarius, life probably started from the ashes of the previous galaxy. Where that came from I don't know. The only language that will be able to tell us this will math, of that much I'm entirely sure.
- SocialistBetty
December 31, 2008 2:48PM
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Ever heard about genetics?
All our children each have 50% of our genes (and that is not blue genes for you morons).
Add to that that they grow up initially in our environment.
And voila! We can see al lot of ourselves (and our spouses) in our children.
Stop wasting your time studying bibles and other "so called" holy books.
The truth is in biology, not religion.
- gma
March 19, 2009 7:00PM
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Um, what?
Sorry, that was just a messy pile of words. I had to read each paragraph about four times just to grasp the meaning behind the twisted prose. As far as I can gather the argument was, I look like my mum and dad. God exists. Right then. Thanks.
As for the actual cited evidence, one thing stood out; "The overall purpose of self-perpetuation is assumed by most scientists to be the drive inherent in all samples of individual species to be “species-sustaining.” ". Translation, 'Scientists think things reproduce to continue their species.'
If by scientists you mean biologists, then no, they don't. Things reproduce to continue their genes, this is a complicated, sometimes counter-intuitive argument which takes much explaining but, once grasped makes a lot of sense and explains a whole mess of problems away. Try 'the selfish gene' for a good starting point.
- bjrhodes
May 1, 2009 5:23AM
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conventional wisdom?
I'm afraid "conventional wisdom" isn't a very firm basis on which to rest an argument. "Conventional wisdom" has held a lot of things which turned out to be wrong.
Moreover, it is not clear that the conventional wisdom cited here is in fact universal to the human species (and even if it were, so what? Humankind can't be wrong?). I would suspect that this is a cultural, not a species, assumption. An idea, for example, which had been dominant in the West was that of the great chain of being, where all things were connected in this chain, and related things looked like one another. Thus, in the Renaissance walnuts were thought to be good for treating problems with the brain because they resembled human brains.
An even bigger objection is that the claim that things tend to "reflect" their source seems to be inaccurate. It is also a vague phrase that can probably be shifted in ways that make it impossible to disprove, but let's leave that aside. The examples given here really stack the deck. For any one exmaple of how a thing looks like its source, I could likely give 10 examples of things that do not. Knowledge looks nothing like the books from which it was obtained; books look nothing like trees; trees look nothing like acorns; acorns, in turn, look nothing like trees, nor like sunlight, water, or nutrients. I shouldn't have to belabor the obvious here - claiming that things resemble their sources is such a vague claim that it is largely meaningless, and if the claim is made more specific, it becomes less apparent that this is something we should assume, "conventional wisdom" or not.
Without this very problematic assumption, there is no argument. The American atheists must really be slacking off if they haven't registered an objection to this "argument" yet.
- ghanastudent
May 4, 2009 9:04PM
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God looks human?
The literal interpretation of the Bible & Torah as well as your own argument (apparently) suggest that a God exists with all of the physical features of a human man, though it's never been explained why exactly a god would require genitals, waste disposal, legs, or anything, really.
Children look like their parents not because their parents chose to make them that way but because they passed on a set of their own genes. Children sometimes act like their parents because they were exposed to a certain mindset, environment and ideology.
Why, then, would the God of the Bible choose to expose us and command of us violence, hate, racism , sexism, but not even bother to suggest compassion in, say, his Ten Commandments? Why would he share with us only a few attributes but not all, if we are truly made in his image?
It seems, as usual, the theist conclusion has come not from evidence and logical reasoning first, then conclusion, but conclusion first than a half-hearted attempt at evidence and logical reasoning to convince others of the conclusion.
- Blue Linchpin
June 3, 2009 6:23PM
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