Archbishop of Canterbury not sure that God exists

[MikeO996]

"Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has said he sometimes has doubts in his belief in God.

In an interview with BBC Bristol the leader of the Church of England said he doubted in "lots of different ways".

He said: "There are moments, sure, when you think, 'Is there a God?' 'Where is God?'"

The archbishop has recently completed a tour of the West Country and made his comments at an event called Standing Room Only at Bristol Cathedral.

When asked about doubt by presenter Lucy Tegg, he said: "It is a really good question. I love the Psalms, if you look at Psalm 88 that's full of doubt.

"The other day I was praying over something as I was running, and I ended up saying to God 'look this is all very well, but isn't it about time you did something, if you're there?'

"Which is probably not what the Archbishop of Canterbury should say.""


Which of course naturally raises the question: is the Pope Catholic?

[MikeO996]

At least they're being honest at one level but that must lead to a lot of hypocritical behaviour e.g. every Sunday when they stand up and lead the congregation in the creed.
Maybe they should chuck in the collar and become counsellors.

[MikeO996]

King Herald said:

joe_90 said:

There is a difference between blind faith and faith, and faith enforced due to irrational fear.

And then there is 'believing' because you were told to, on a daily basis, every day of the week, and were threatened with violence and eternal misery if you didn't.

It should be treated as child cruelty, scaring, lieing too, and threatening youngsters, but it is not.

Although brainwashing doesn't require any threats or cruelty, just a pervasive context. The distinction between e.g. "Catholic children" and "children of Catholic parents" is important to hold.

[MikeO996]

Qwert1e said:

Since you've got it all cracked, can you just let us know why there is a universe?

You see when push comes to shove there's only one question and it's rather a tricky one. Namely, why is there "anything" and not "nothing"?

Why does there need to be a reason?

[MikeO996]

ash73 said:

p.s. if any atheists on here enjoy logic puzzles, have a go at dismantling Kurt Gödel's ontological proof, it's quite fun. Basically it says, by definition, God is that for which no greater can be conceived; and while God exists in the understanding of the concept, or in the mind, we could conceive of him as greater if he existed in reality. Therefore, God must exist.

Someone, who needs to get out more, has actually programmed the logic here

Presumably it would also prove the existence of the devil (more evil than anything we could conceive of), and anything else unimaginably perfect.

Edited by MikeO996 on Sunday 21st September 08:27

[MikeO996]

ash73 said:

Your logic is flawed, that which can create the universe can also interact with it; whether it is conceivable to us or not.

Maybe it was a one off interaction, a set of circumstances that occurred just once by accident.
I banged my head yesterday, the door frame created a bruise, but it's not going to interact with my bruise any more

[MikeO996]

ash73 said:

MikeO996 said:

Presumably it would also prove the existence of the devil (more evil than anything we could conceive of), and anything else unimaginably perfect.

It could be fun to test, although I'm not sure I can get my head round it. It relies on 5 axioms as an input, and if you accept them I think the logical proof is then inescapable; God is instantiated in a formula

It's just a bit of fun really; if you accept the universe is a mathematical entity then you have to accept mathematical proofs. Einstein was a friend of Kurt Gödel apparently and they spent time debating it.

I've looked this up now. Apparently you can also use it to prove that pigs can fly and (tongue in cheek) that god doesn't exist, because a god who created a universe whilst not existing would be greater than a god who did.

[MikeO996]

A pig that can fly is surely a better pig than one that can't?

The cosmological argument is rubbish.

[MikeO996]

Kant and Hume sorted it out IIRC in the 18th century.
At a common sense level it obviously doesn't hold water, the problem for philosophers has been explaining why from a theoretical logic point of view.
Basically saying something exists doesn't make it exist, there needs to be some other independent evidence in the real world before it can be said to exist.

[MikeO996]

What have you made exist by the power of thought?

Relativity is a scientific theory open to hypothesis testing, and as such has developed greater credibility, whereas the ontological has never been credible even amongst theologians

[MikeO996]

Derek Smith said:

My schooling days are a bit vague now, due to my age and the distance in time, but I seem to remember a discussion where the teacher argued that a thought has existence and it could be proved to have existed. One example he used was a made-up name in a film.

It didn't exist before the script writer thought of it, so he or she brought it into existence.

His argument was that just because you can't hit it with a club it doesn't mean it isn't real.

Yes, if you think of something it exists: as a thought.
The argument is about whether you can think something into existence, purely by thought. Ironically the ontological argument can be taken to work well for atheists because it can be taken to show that god was created by man.

Edited by MikeO996 on Monday 22 September 21:43

[MikeO996]

ash73 said:

Yes the ontological proof relates to something inconceivable which cannot be tested..

Then it's not a proof.

[MikeO996]

You can be patronising, but if it's inconceivable and untestable then it can't be a proof.

[MikeO996]

Foppo said:

I like his honesty what do we know about a God.It is a belief not a certainty.

A priest once mentioned to the pope that he had doubts about his belief in God.

The pope said fake it my son fake it.> Or words to that effect I believe.

At last we're back to the Archbish, bout time too.
All these arguments about proof are a bit of a red herring, if they had any significant power then all this would have been sorted centuries ago and God would be smiling down at us from the sky saying "it's a fair cop cop, you got me, the gates of heaven are opened.
What's interesting about the Archbish and vaguely newsworthy is
a) it's not what you expect from leadership, conventionally you would expect a top leader to have a vision that he or she inspires in their underlings so as to bolster up their moments of doubt, and although the Anglician church is primarily wispy washy in this country (with some big evangelical exceptions) it's pretty muscular in its core constituencies e.g. Africa
b) I can't imagine previous Archbishops saying this (or the Pope for that matter), and this, together with the recent comments from him and his predecessor that the UK is Christian (following on from Cameron's comments on the matter) for "historical" reasons does I suspect mark a shift.
What I also find interesting in his comments and in this thread is that no-one has said that the best evidence for his (it must be he given the misogyny in the bible, assuming it is remotely divinely inspired) existence is in his actions and impact. Not even the Archbishop of Canterbury ffs seems to feel that he has had direct experience of god, or seen evidence of him in action; ""The other day I was praying over something as I was running, and I ended up saying to God 'look this is all very well, but isn't it about time you did something, if you're there?'".