Does God Exist?

This is a trick question.

Suppose God made everything that exists. If He then Himself exists then he must have created Himself. But if He created Himself then he must have existed forever otherwise who made Him in the first place. And if he lived forever then he wasn't created. Which contradicts the idea that he exists.

Now perhaps God doesn't obey logic, but then we know for sure he doesn't exist since everything that exists obeys logic.

So which ever way you look at it God does not exist. And this must be true to put Him in a position to create everything. (This incidentally is SRH in action.)

But this is not the end of the story because there is a lot more to this world than just existence!

Of all Mankinds achievements Buddhism provides the best and fullest theory of Existence. Konadatta's insight is that everything that exists must have been created and so everything that exists did not exist at some point and had to come into being. It also says that everything that exists will one day cease to exist. This is because the process of creation is actually a process of change, and it never stops. To go from not existing to existing is actually just a change and rearrangement of the world. There is nothing present after creation that was not there before. This also leads to the realisation that nothing real is actually created in existence. What is created can then be seen as illusion and not entirely real. This is one way of looking at sunyata (translated as emptiness or thusness). So in fact nothing is ever really created. This is codified in Physics as the 1st Law of Thermodynamics: energy cannot be created or destroyed. So the West already knows that existence is an illusion. So how do things come to exist? Buddhism explains that the illusion actually arises in the mind. The West would say that it is the result of brain processes. (However this is a limited view as brain processes are themselves existing and so this only converts mental processes into brain processes but doesn't do anything to investigate them).

So we see that existence is not really as significant as we like to think. Indeed existence is just what we think.

So the question "Does God exist?" is not that significant a question. Existence is not the main issue in the spiritual universe. It is just the issue for minds.

Buddhism does not have an opinion on God because Buddha pointed out that God cannot actually save you. While religions often appear to put the power of salvation in the hands of Gods you will notice that gods cannot save by themselves. Gods save in proportion with the devotion and dedication of the practitioner. The person who spends much time and effort doing many sacrifices will be more favoured by God than the one who does nothing. It is down to the practitioner not God!

This is why I think the Jews rather have this wrong: the idea of "being chosen people" is entirely meaningless. You can see in the Bible what a nonsense this is. In Genesis 27 Isaac (and so apparently All-Seeing-God) is fooled into giving the birthright to the younger son Jacob instead of Esau. Esau biologically has the birthright but we see that even in the eyes of God if you are fooled bloodright means nothing. So the Jews claiming they have a birthright to God's favour by virtue of their blood line is worth nothing if you think otherwise. And sorry to always pick on the Jews but they are the most significant people in Western history so naturally fall under the greatest scrutiny. They also try and get aloof to scrutiny with this idea of "anti-semitism" but trying to hide from criticism is highly suspicious. I don't even think the authentic Jews would like being beyond criticism. In my view the idea of anti-semitism is just a political device wrapped up in the promised land saga via the (many if we include Babylon and Egypt) Holocaust(s) which it will be noted was not uniquely anything to do with Jews. It was to do with non-aryans and the Jews have politically hijacked it. Its a complex petty mess of identity, blood lines and who will inherit the Earth. And nothing to do with God at all I suggest.

So putting blood-lines behind us, God favours those who devote themselves to God best. And this is the key that Buddha observed. Worshipping God changes you, and that is the change that if often attributed to Gods power. BUT, and this is very huge but, you cannot get those changes without totally believing in God! So the idea that "if I worship God with full dedication the power of change is coming from me not God" doesn't work because we are not then really that dedicated to God, and rather created a religion of "Me". The whole point of religion is to undo this "Me" that actually limits our power. When you want a new car you ust throw the old one away and the same is true for ourselves. This answer here given here is just for the enquiring mind that seeks solid answers and cannot understand faith, but this answer will not improve you. Understand that, if you seek solidity and fixedness you will actually end up crushing your own power and ability to change. Faith is something beyond you that enables you to reach beyond yourself into things you cannot yet understand. It fosters growth. I'm always reminded of the David Beckham statue in a Hindu temple. David Beckham isn't our typical image of God. But for people who aspire to achieve what he has achieved, to represent their country in sports or simply just be the best they can be he is exactly the god they should worship. Without a mentor or role model like this, how are we to possibly fathom the potential that we have? David Beckham is a relatively small god as his achievement is graspable. Other "gods" like Isaac, Jesus or Buddha have attainments that we cannot even grasp. But they all represent potentials that we don't even know we have.

So does God exist? It can be seem that it is a complex question with no simple answer. Looked at one way no. There is no thing out there called God. You can search far and wide and you will not find Him. But logically this must be the case as God created everything. Looking deeper we see that everything that exists is actually an illusion created in our Minds. So we then conclude that God is our Mind.

You cannot find a mind anywhere in the universe because the "universe" is created by the mind. I say "created" in a similar sense to the fact that Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes. Our mind creates the "real" universe in a very similar way to how it created the Sherlock Holmes universe. It is this power in fact that enables fiction. This is how we can change our mind about the world and suddenly it all looks different. Some days the universe looks amazing, other days it is full of trouble and seems unpleasant. Some days it is completely full of the person we love, other days it is completely full of the enemy we hate. Some days Newtonian physics explains the movement of the planets, some days when our computer isn't working the only thing that matters is electronics. Certainly the universe 400 years ago wasn't controlled by Newtonian physics as no one knew it. Perhaps it was there to be discovered, but whatever we discovered--that we call Newtonian physics-- made no difference to the planets! Astrologers watched the planets 1000 years ago just as they do today. The only difference is how we think about them!

After we conclude that God is our Mind, we realise that we cannot grasp that... certainly cannot grasp it within our mind. And this is where religion comes in and a million versions of god to give us a way of reaching beyond ourselves and growing. It may be our parents who inspire us, and show us how to feel and behave, or a teacher who inspires us, or a movie star or something we see for ourselves in a vision, realisation or inspiration. This is the world of faith which is beyond that of existence and in which anything in fact is possible. What may have looked bleak above, to discover that the thought world of existence is really an illusion, turn out to be beyond magnificent as we realise that with faith we can reach our far beyond the limits of the existing world our minds have created. This is why they talk of Karma in the East - these are the apparently real physical obstructions to our path to a greater self. They can be anything from troublesome people, to troublesome emotions and disabilities. We have the power to beat them all, but as we are now that is incomprehensible and we need faith in a larger self to do this. This faith is not an egotistical battle of "I will win" but rather a humble dedication to what we have not achieved yet, an acknowledgement that other people are better than us and that we can improve. What dualistically looks like success and failure from the perspective of our small current self, is really just what I can do, and who I am yet to be from the perspective of our future greater self.

So God definitely exists, in that we have endless potential to be what we are not yet.