This section gave a series of different arguements for why we believe that God exists. Here are several that I found interesting.
THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE: This says that that because of the slim chances of human beings existing in the first place, there must have been some kind of greater, outside influence that helped us come into existence. We believe this greater influence was God.
THE KALAM ARGUEMENT: This says
that everything that begins to exist had a cause outside itself. It also states that the universe began to exist. If we can accept these two statements then we must also accept that the universe was created by something outside itself. We believe that this outside cause was God.
ARGUEMENT FROM DEGREES OF PERFECTION: This argues that when we call one thing better than another we imply the existence of a being which has that quality to perfection and this perfection must be God.
Although I found these arguements for God's existence to be legitimate, they still raise some questions for me.
The Anthropic principle may be correct but why is it so shocking that we exist. Everything in the world's existence came about by chance. The existence of birds or dogs or evergreen trees or whatever all had a lot of factors that if they were not just right these things would not have existed and so hjow is the existence of humans so much more surprising than the existence of anything else on Earth?
If the Kalam Arguement is true. Then one could make the arguement that God was created. This series of statements could be made:
P: Everything that begins to exist had a cause outside of itself.
P: The universe began to exist.
P: God creted the universe which means God exists
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C: God has a cause outside of God
And to challenge the Arguement from degrees of perfection...If God wants us to have free will, why would God predetermine himself as the most perfect thing that we somehow all automatically accept as being the most perfect thing? Isn't this some kind of an impedance on our free will?