I believe God exists because of my own spiritual experiences and the experiences of millions of other people over thousands of years of human history.
But stating that God exists immediately makes people jump to conclusions about what God IS.
I am not saying that the God of the Christian Bible exists or the one defined by Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and other religions exists. I am only saying that human beings have certain experiences that are spiritual or mystical in nature, and they are interpreted as being a connection to God.
It doesn't matter if you are a fundamentalist or atheist, Christian or Muslim. The fact that we have all argued for centuries about a definition of God (or non-God) supports my proposal that we don't know what God is. God could be an internal biochemical reaction, a surge of some form of energy, an advanced alien being or a true Supreme Being. We are simply guessing.
Even if you have not had a spiritual or mystical experience, I don't think you can discount the millions if not billions of people who have had them over the course of time.
What are your thoughts on the subject?
You have stated one of the problems with the existence of a god - even as you believe it is there you fail to define what it is. Only that people have experiences they attribute to a god, and of course attributing something to a god does not in any way show the existence of god. Only that people make one up to explain their experiences.
Like everyone else, then, you will have to define a god before you can claim it exists. Until that can be done, claiming anything is the result of a god doesn't make much sense. As you point out it could be internal, it could be an unknown energy source or an ET - all are no better than guesses.
If I understand you correctly, I would say our inability to clearly define something doesn't mean that that thing doesn't exist.
Spiritual experiences point to something we label as God. The experience allows us to to say that "God" exists. In that sense, God is just a label. The experience is evidence.
All major religions have "numinous" in common. It's the words we layer on top of it that are limited in nature and colored by cultural and personal differences.
Of course it doesn't. But trying to define "God" from actions attributed to it are futile as those actions cover every human experience from finding lost car keys to clearing a road of traffic to saving (or taking) of lives.
Go back a few years to cosmologists deciding there was "dark matter" out there. No definition (same as god), but the results of this unknown "dark matter" was to accelerate galaxies away from each other. So the search began for something which produced that effect, retaining the label "dark matter" until it is found, as nothing more than a label.
But "God" doesn't work that way - people all over the world ascribe everyday events, all of them, to a god. They also don't check for other possible causes, preferring to label the cause as "God". This makes the task of showing the existence of "God" impossible as it rests only on the word of the person (without testing) that "God" caused their experience, and the opposite experience of someone else. The numinous you mention falls into place here - with experiences unrepeatable, untestable and with opposing effects, all attributed to "God", from differing cultures it is not possible to determine of "God" exists.
The end result is that you are correct; we cannot say "God" doesn't exist. Not only is it nearly impossible to prove a negative, but when we cannot define either what "God" is OR what "God" does, it cannot be proven either way. As individuals, then, we must all make a choice based primarily on whether we want a god or not - there is zero evidence either way even though we like to claim that our experiences are evidence. They are not.
That was very well said Promisem. I have a similar view, and I couldn't have stated that nearly as clear as you. I agree with you on all points.
If we openly consider all the stories, texts, tablets and said experiences, throughout the 20K + years of human history, the simplest conclusion of what "God" is : is that "God" is everything - as we define the tangible and intangible elements of Life.
Like yourself, I am a man who prefers the philosophy of application/experience over the philosophies of theory, even to a large degree history. So, the adventure to discovery of what begins within.
I have come to accept that on the genetic level we, the entire collective, have perfect knowledge of what "God" is, even as we genetically know every language, when to breathe, how to sneeze, etc. It is also within these beautiful million billion stands of information that we are completely ignorant of who "God" is. It was, and is the inception of indulgance of those information threads, called Reason, Thinking, that confuses us and keeps us bound in an inescapable maze. Regardless of how amazing and beautiful said maze is, it is a death trap.
It is believed the mind, in all its glorious detail, is all man has to show that he is unique and special. Yet, from all that he has done throughout existence, it is the mind that has kept him at a loss, denying him the answer to a question he never really needed to consider -because he already knows the answer. He has always known. It was programmed into him, just as every probable hue of color, alone or combined with another, was programmed into him to enjoy and view from every angle, without effort, without necessity, without struggle or fear, without thinking, dissecting, testing or idolizing, without squabble or shame....
Once agsin, I'll reiterate this, and hope it sticks: whenever, wherever there is necessity, a need to know, there is a lack of experience, complete confusion and chaos. And whenever or wherever there is experience there is no question or answer, no reason, even though that knowledge exists within...
I used to believe that God existed as thought in religion, but now without wanting to offend those who believe in a true God that created us as his image and likeness, I´m starting to believe that each and every human can be the creator of his own universe; not the universe that we know, but another, one of his/her own creation….
What is God? Our creator.
I don't know the nature of God, but I can make a few guesses.
We were given sense organs-God must want us to experience the world. We were give large brains-God must want us to be able to think rationally. We were given a sense of right and wrong-God must want us to behave.
You're right - they are guesses. For instance, perhaps the big brain is to handle the sensory input, not think. Most people cannot think consistently and rationally, after all.
People all over the world have vastly different senses of right and wrong - it mostly seems an after affect to the environment (physical and social) and nothing given by a god. And even fewer people consistently behave even by their own sense of right and wrong.
There is also the problem of every god being intensely anthropomorphic. We want our god to be as we feel is right, and that just doesn't follow at all. Until we can know the purpose of creation, trying to deduce the nature of a god is an exercise in futility, and doubly so when we give a god attributes we would admire.
......... And he studies and performs experiments on humans
by Luke M. Simmons 8 years ago
Does anyone have any evidence for the existence of God?I am an atheist, which to me only means that I haven't been shown requisite evidence to convince me of an omnipotent, all-knowing deity of any kind. If you would, please bring forth this evidence and deliver me from a fiery...
by The Demon Writer 14 years ago
Can you, without quoting or referencing the Bible give me solid arguments as to the existence of GodDon't even mention the Bible! It is totally irrelevant and is not a credible source. It was not written by God, but men. So, without aid of your Bible, prove to me that God exists!
by Claire Evans 9 years ago
That's the typical Sam Harris argument. How does suffering negate God's existence? Maybe He's just watching. It doesn't mean He doesn't exist and for anyone to bring up suffering as proof of no God is indication of a logical fallacy.
by Sophia Angelique 12 years ago
This perception by some that Agnosticism is somehow more holier than Atheism is nothing but splitting hairs.Neither runs their lives by God.By virtue of the fact that agnostics say that they don't know if there is a God or not, it's quite obvious that they certainly don't run their lives by one,...
by bdn9385 8 years ago
Does atheism means I don't believe the existence of God or I hate God for who He is?
by wordscribe41 15 years ago
The following post is in response to a statement made by another hubber and the many posts I've read using logical fallacies:"the burden of proof" is NOT on the believers. There is no burden to prove He exists because it is by FAITH that we believe. It is by faith we called on to believe....
Copyright © 2025 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2025 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |