Essay - Existence of God - Value of Belief Jonathan Waller, in...

Existence of God - Value of Belief

***** Waller, in his onl*****e essay "God versus God," raises very pertinent issues about the existence ***** *****—the ever widening divide between theists and a*****. In light of recent events, Waller maintains that these issues are ***** important. Mohammad Atta, in the name of God, flew a pl*****ne *****to a building. One of the first recognizable casualties in New York of the September 11, 2001, was Fr. Michael Judge, the chaplain of the New York Fire department. A few days before his death, *****. ***** proclaimed ***** firefighters' job "a blessing from *****." Atta and Judge—two men on the same side of an argu*****t—both were staunch beli*****s in the power ********** existence of God (Wallace, 2001).

***** God that important in our lives? Can we exist without belief ***** God? More importantly, will our faith in God and goodness hinge on tangible evidence ***** ********** existence? At the end of this essay, we may be not any closer to determining God's existence. It is important ho*****ver, ***** recognize each side's argument. God, in the op*****ion of many—believers and non*****believers, is (or should be) an entity ***** is: omnipotent (all-powerful), omnipresent (present everywhere), omn*****cient (all-knowing), primarily Good, and Not Wanting.

Christian ********** generally use the Bible ***** Sacred Scriptures as evidence for God and the Messianic Prophecy—the coming of Jesus Christ (and the existence of the Holy Trinity—Fa*****r, Son ***** Holy Spirit). The ***** and t*****ings of saints, and miracles or events that have no logical or scientific explanation are taken as the physical manifestation of God's work on earth—a proof of God's *****. Since the earliest biblical books ***** from ***** 9th and 10th century, skeptics opined that the Bible was really ***** work of the early Christians. The discovery ***** the Dead Sea Scrolls (carbon dated back to almost 150 BCE) put paid ***** that theory (Vermes, 1997). ***** ***** capture the essence of the Bible, sometimes word ***** *****—especially the book ***** Isaiah, the prophet that most strenuously proclaimed the coming of Christ.

For atheists, the belief (or lack thereof) is simple: they want tangible evidence of God. The*****ts complain that the atheist sees God from man's perspective, within the bounds of *****ally recognized laws.

Here are some of the arguments ***** *****s bring to the table:

David Hume's theodice problem points out inherent contradictions in the existence ***** *****; ***** pertain ***** the evil in the world. If God is almighty ***** the creator of the universe, he created all the ***** in the world. If God did not create evil, then he ***** not the Almighty. (Hume, 1998)

Another argument refers to a fund*****mental, immutable principle of the physics of the existence of matter in time and space—the Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle. ***** time, position and the *****s governing motion were fixed at the vertices ***** a fixed triangle, changing one and expecting the other two to remain unchanged is impossible. If the Uncertainty Principle holds good, God cannot be