The Existence of God: The Argument from Desire
 

Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for these desires exists. A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim; well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire; well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

please stop posting this. the only thing you are doing is making the non believers reject it even more. if you want to save someone please go elsewhere.

amen

Off Topic somewhat.

CS Lewis The Chronicles of Narnia is my favorite set of books ever.

I read that set at least twice, some books 3 times.

i want to be baptized

This has NOTHING to do with Christianity. The question of the existence of God is independent of the question of which God is the true God?

And I am not the ONLY person who posts threads like this. There are at least 5 GOD threads posted every day on GFY.

is that the only book you read? have many times have you read it?

My mistake, i apologize. im just use to you posting stuff like that

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh

Mere Christianity? I have read almost everything ever written by C.S. Lewis.

I have read a FEW more books than that. :1orglaugh

dude read some Emerson and Thoreau and get back to me on your view of religion.

I just want to fuck some strange women and then go home to my wife.

Does that make me a sinner??


God I hope so.

what God?

I have. Both are great writers but I don't share their pantheistic worldviews.

Well, it sure as hell doesn't make you a very good husband.

What holograph? :1orglaugh

before you go to proof of god existance, can you prove that you exist?

:321GFY

You sound like a philosopher. :1orglaugh

google me :)

but why you jump from god to me? :1orglaugh

Very mature response, asshole. Can't critique the argument so you just drop by to say "fuck off." Well,

:321GFY :321GFY

I will. What's your REAL name?

God is concept, nothing more. you trying to find some proof of creators existance, you expect some good by god's image, all you see in life is killing for survival.
if there is god, it doesnt hate nor love, god is not good nor bad
god doesn't respont when you turn to him, how much more proof you need?

i might be the one you so eager to find proof of :1orglaugh

why the fuck would i want to give my real name to some wierd boobmaster that doesn't know his own creator? :)

You asked me to google you, DUMBASS

(1) You are using the most worn out argument against the existence of God that there is -- the one based on the existence of EVIL.

(2) Your Location field says you live in NJ.

(3) Your skill with the English language tells me you are lying.

God does not speak BROKEN ENGLISH.

dude hear yourself: i desire god therefor god exists

with or without desires it might exist or might not, its not because of the desire. certainly it wont prove anything. of course in our little minds we cannot think of anything that is not in existance (maybe thats way you can't understand god), but just because you desire something doesnt mean it exists or will come true. your desire may come because of opposite expirience and for instance once you know evil you might want to desire good, but if the world you live in is based on evil no matter how much you desire good, it may not come true, you might get killed also.

the very first example you brought in in this threat isn't a good in corelation to god topic. once again i repeat god may or may not exists with or without your desires.

you have to pardon me for me english, but i do live in NJ and i'm sorry you accusing me of lying jumping to conclusions based on me english :)

do you have any valid samples of god's speach or writing?:1orglaugh

You miss the whole point of the argument.

(1) Every natural, innate desire in us corresponds to some real object that can satisfy that desire.

(2) But there exists in us a desire which nothing in time, nothing on earth, no creature can satisfy.

(3) Therefore there must exist something more than time, earth and creatures, which can satisfy this desire.

(4) This something is what people call "God" and "life with God forever."

Of course he does, the bible is the word of god... where've you been? :winkwink:

c.s. lewis and 'mere christianity' is a pretty interesting book...


but when it comes to arguments for the existence of god, I think the 'pocket aquinas' is a much more suitable source of arguments...


:thumbsup :thumbsup



the design (thus a designer) argument is pretty cool...

those are stories of some witneses around jesus, you may believe god wrote that book or has spoken it.

:1orglaugh
You talked shit about someone using an "old argument" earlier in this thread, then you called someone else immature for responding with :321GFY and yet you come back with "fuck off newb" in caps and a type size a blind grandmother could see? Classy guy. Chill the fuck out man, I know you don't take the bible as the literal word of god, I'm just bustin ass. You're at GFY...keep that in mind at all times.

boobmaster, i see where you coming from

but from my perspective there is a flow in this thinking:
do you believe this desire has been ever sitisfied? i can agree that such desire exists. but i hardly but hardly think its been satified.

if there is such creature above earth and all living things, i think it doesn't care in terms of good and evil, it doesn't have feelings/desires like humans do and sertainly if we as human race are somebodie's 'kids' we ought to be fittest and strongest and not like crying babies that we can't go through some life periods. nobody will come and clean mess after us and nobody will come and help there is no reason. if you consider yourself being god made you have to be the best.

If man goes without food, man dies.
If mankind goes without sex, mankind dies.
If mankind goes without god, god dies. :1orglaugh

lol can't argue with that.

In a proof the conclusion must logically follow from the premises. How does (3) follow from (1) and (2)? Or are you just trying to be a smartass?

If God himself came down out of the clouds with 100,000 of his angels for the entire world to see, most of you STILL wouldn't believe in him.

lol
i honestly think if someone comes here claiming to be creator of this earth (sorry dont know further) then this "creator" will get shot if not shot then tried to be put in permanent suffering for the suffering he/she/it gave to others.

if you like cs lewis then i suggest lois lowry too...

There are no gods, only our fear of the unknown exists.

- Giorgio Xo

I'd believe that he existed all right, then I'd piss on him!

The argument is fallacious. There's any number of conditions inherent to the fragility of the human brain what could cause a person to desire the impossible, improbable or just plain wierd. Read through the case studies of paranoid delusionals sometime.

... however, lets just start with one simple concept that puts this 'desire for god' into perspective:

Immortality.

Throughout time, man has sought it, desired it, engaged in wars and quests about it, generated massive mythologies surrounding it.

It doesn't exist.

Why does a desire for immortality exist, then? I would suggest that people want immortality because they fear the unknown instinctively, and noone has come back to tell people what it's like (aside from some random people who were either 'dead' for PR reasons, or had an enormous post-mortal mythos built up). The assertion is, therefore, a logical fallacy.

"God" isn't the reason why religion exists. Religion exists to provide answers to things which, at the moment, are unanswerable by means of deduction. Back in the old days those questions were "what are those shining dots in the sky at night? why does water fall on my head?", nowadays its limited pretty much to the time-honoured questions of 'where are we from, why are we here, what happens when we die'. Rational thought has come up with better, more verifiable answers to the other questions.

God isn't the source of the desire. God is the temporary answer, until we can find something better. It's the "tastes like chicken" solution in the face of insufficient information to supplant it.

Mind you, even imperfect abstractions can be highly effective. Crystal spheres sorta did the job until Copernicus, Kepler, Brae and Newton came along. Classical mechanics was plenty useful until Einstein. Saying that God would strike down those who ate pig was still an effective means of keeping people from dying from eating undercooked pork, even though we know today that there's a better reason why it happened.

I want to be crucified :thumbsup

I wanna be sedated. :thumbsup :rasta

God is on the T.V.
~ Marilyn Manson, Rock is dead

I believe in immortality of the soul because I have within me immortal longings.
Helen Keller

You claim, emphatically, that immortality does not exist, that the idea of God is only a place holder for a time when science will be able to come up with a better answer. How do you KNOW that science will ever come up with an answer (Evolution isn't it, BTW), and if it does, how do you KNOW that the answer will NOT involve God?

The explanation you give for 'why we believe in God' is the most common one cited by those attempting to argue against the very idea. It also happens to be true. We do CREATE explanations for things that we fear or do not understand, and we clearly fear death. But it is a mistake to say that this automatically means that God MUST be a creation of man.

Man has created many myths over the years in his attempt to come to grips with the certainty of death, and many of these explanations involve gods. The key word here is GODS (PLURAL). Man tends towards polytheism. When he 'creates' gods, he creates many of them. The only KNOWN true monotheistic system is the Judeo-Christian one, the one system that man did NOT create.

If you had any idea of what that would be like, I assure you, you'd change your mind.