A Facebook debate about faith.

The topic of God is highly divisive one. For many, their religious beliefs define who they are and they defend them vigorously. Exchanges concerning God’s existence on social media are interesting.

David Fairthorne posted this in Facebook this morning.

David recorded the following three arguments under the title MY PHILOSOPHY.

1. There is no God.

There are three well known "arguments" for the existence of God; none of which is conclusive:

The ontological argument;

A "greatest being" must exist

The ontological argument was proposed by Saint Anselm of Canterbury in his 1078 work, Proslogion, in which he defines God as "a being than which no greater can be conceived".

The teleological argument; ("intelligent design")

The universe is so complex that it must have had a designer

The teleological argument (intelligent design argument) is an argument for the existence of God or, more generally, that complex functionality in the natural world which looks designed.

The cosmological argument;

the argument from first cause

The cosmological argument can also be referred to as an argument from first cause, the causal argument, or prime mover argument; that there exists a first cause, identified as God.

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2. There is no determinism; only free will.

Everybody is free to make choices about how they behave at any time and in any given circumstances; there will often be constraints, limiting the available choices; there may be good choices and bad choices; but ultimately it's a matter of choice, and that is what I understand "free will" to mean. So-called determinism (the absence of free will) doesn't exist.

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3. If it can't conceivably be disproven, it isn't science.

Otherwise you could make any statement, however absurd, and claim that it is true, without fear of contradiciton.

This view was expressed by philosopher Karl Popper, to whom I give credit.

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MY COMMENT to David Fairthorn

To believe in the God of the Bible is to believe in fables and myths passed on between peoples and generations to explain the mysteries of Creation and Reality with yet another mystery of an all-powerfil, unseen, untouchable agent of the prior myths.

Humans love stories. They crave safety and a sense of certainty. The Bible offers these to many people whose need to believe in these is greater than their need to remain curious about those mysteries and open to other possibilities.

I do not believe in the biblical God because he is portrayed in the image and likeness of man. As a human creation, the biblical God manifests the same characteristics as men and women: - to be angry and vengeful; - to love conditionally; - to play favourites (racist); - to grow old and grey.

Consciousness is the Creator and the nature of Reality.

Take some time to think about this statement and see where its possibilities take you.

If consciousness exists beyond time, space and mass (as does the idea of the biblical God), what does this mean for the ideas of infinity, life, death, memories, dreams, ghosts, purpose, etcetera?

One thing I know with certainty is that I possess consciousness. It is where my reality is registered, my every perception throughout life. Faith is not required to believe in my consciousness because it and my life are one and the same.

From what I have observed, all “living” entities are beings of consciousness, even plants and insects that respond to life-threatening and life-affirming conditions.

While none of these ideas are written in the Bible, they are written in my soul - an avatar of consciousness - which the Bible acknowledges to exist. To me, the Bible is simply an artifact of consciousness- a collection of thoughts and feelings recorded by men long ago. That collection lives on today in the hearts and minds of millions of people of faith by their choice (free will) to pay conscious attention to them through prayer, rituals, reading, etcetera.

My Life Lens guides me.

I do not pay attention to the Bible because I learned early in life that it does not offer me what I need to pursue a life of meaning and fulfillment.

Instead, I pay attention to other artifacts of consciousness manifest as books, articles, podcasts, audio-visual content, and conversations with others. These provide an infinitely richer source of ideas, feelings and adventure for me than a single book like the Bible ever could as I travel the road of my life as a being of consciousness.