I never said babies are stupid.

What does one expect or hope for from such arguments?

Can the existence or non-existence of God be determined by argument?

Or is it a matter of finding reasons for or against believing?

Or is it a matter of the possibility of God?

What hangs on the existence or non-existence of God?

What does one expect or hope for from such arguments? — Fooloso4

I expect to show that theism is an irrational belief system.

Can the existence or non-existence of God be determined by argument?

Theism can be shown not to be true or conceptually incoherent which entails that any theistic deity is fictional.

Or is it a matter of finding reasons for or against believing?

It's a matter of exposing – making explicit – the insufficient evidence or unsound arguments in reasoning "for and against believing".

Or is it a matter of the possibility of God?

For me, it's a matter of the truth-value of what believers say about what they call "God".

What hangs on the existence or non-existence of God?

Only a conception of reality.

Nietzsche's most famous points about god, "...who will wipe the blood from our hands..." etc. isn't so strictly 'negative about religion', rather it points to the deeper question of discovering a new morality in the obviously godless modern reality that we live in. Essentially, anybody who has their head screwed on in the modern era can recognize that there is no proof for the biblical god, that the bible is man-made, that the burden of proof lies on the believer, etc. That kind of atheism is practically a 'truth of thumb' in academic circles, right?

The issue isn't about whether god 'actually' exists. It's about the idea of god as being a source of ethics. The murder of god by logic and science has left a vacuum of fleeting Christian morals.

For example, the idea of value for the Samaritan, that is, finding value in people other than your own tribe, is a fairly radical notion and seems to be a religious idea, particularly when you consider that the reward for such arguably stupid selflessness is eternity in heaven. Without the promise of heaven to motivate us, why would we bother to go outside our tribe? Why would we bother with something like humility if there is nothing but ourselves? What can humble the average person? Please don't say science, which is largely ignored by the average person.

In a world of rapid globalism, I would argue that we need this Samaritan, universal ethic more than ever.

Even without god, as an atheist, I still rely on the societal remnants of Christian morality and ethics, which has dominated the west since it took over the west. I was also raised Christian. So try as I might, I am a product of these ethics. Not all of these ethics are good and not all are bad. I have tried to do away with the ethics that I don't like - but I can find no materialistic basis in certain, very useful ethics. Of course there is the issue of making sense of this hellish reality and meat sack that I'm stuck in - humanism has little say about meaning and purpose other than telling you what you already know - that you've got to figure it all out for yourself. Some help that is.

The question is what we do next as a secular society. Of course, we aren't truly a secular society, but perhaps this speaks to our fear about what to do next. I don't believe in god, literally, but I often wonder if a symbolic belief in ritual, community and spiritual ethics is required to make sense of the radical Samaritan ethic. Of course, this just depends on what kind of world you want to live in.

So to believe in god might mean to pursue faith in direct opposition to all the evidence for the purpose of living a meaningful life. To reject god is to reject that the Samaritan ethic requires justification, it is resigning oneself to a life of searching for reasons for Samaritan ethics, of searching for meaning and justification. Or of course, just a plain old embracing of quasi-darwinian ethics.

What is it that we're certain exists/doesn't exist? What are the criteria for existence/nonexistence?, i.e. if I claim x exists/doesn't exist, I must know why x exists/doesn't exist. Clearly, we all agree that the Eiffel tower exists in Paris, France. Also, equally clearly, elves don't exist.

Now, claims of existence/nonexistence vis-à-vis God have to be in accord with our intuition & reason as outlined in the previous paragraph. To spell it out if God exists, then it must be in the same sense as the Eiffel tower does and if God doesn't exist, it must be in the same sense elves don't.

Something worth pondering upon is that, within the domain of our senses, all we have are necessary conditions & not sufficient conditions for existence [re hallucinations (insanity) + illusions (hyperbolic skepticism)] i.e. it's impossible to prove God, anything else for that matter, exists).

It's about the idea of god as being a source of ethics. The murder of god by logic and science has left a vacuum of fleeting Christian morals. — 64bithuman

That's actually hard to justify if you consider it. Christians have no objective basis for morality. What they have is subjective or personal preferences regarding 1) who they think god is and 2) what they think their version of god wants. This explains why Christians (and other religious folk) have absolutely no agreement on core ethical questions and are all over the place. Take any issue, from gay marriage to abortion, capital punishment, stem cell treatment, the role of women - whatever - theists are all over the place, from fag hating to rainbow flags of diversity. In the end all anyone has is personal judgement about what is right. A Bible or the Koran are only an impressionistic springboard for selecting a personal preference via interpretation.

When I spoke of shallow atheism, I was referring to scientism and materialistic determinism.

I think that your post asks some important questions about the nature of human beings reflecting on understanding it all. In particular, 'What hangs on the existence or non-existence of God' It is not easy to answer and it may be more rhetorical rather than anything else. However; it was the sort of way which I was thinking when I wrote the thread outpost. It is more about what was signified in the emergence of the idea of God in human consciousness.

Even though it is slightly aside from most discussions about the existence of God, one book which I think is important in connection with the development of ideas about gods or God is Julian Jaynes' 'The Origins of the Bicameral Mind'. That is because Jaynes looks at the evolution of thought in human culture. He sees the development of picture representations and language through the form of song and poetry initially. He also sees the way in which human beings in ancient times had a less clear distinction between inner and outer reality. Thoughts were projected outside as coming from gods, and Jaynes sees Moses receiving the ten commandments in this way.

Human understanding is so different from ancient times and, generally, belief in God is used as a source for rational explanations. This goes back to Aristotle's idea of God as the initial form of causation. The idea of both cause as well as the way of understanding reality, including the development of differentiation of subjective and objective realms may be important in thinking about the initial basis for belief in higher beings or 'the divine' emerged in human understanding.

I wonder if the element of differentiating between 'objective and subjective' puts the cart before the horse when looking at earlier views of the divine.
The desire to win the favor of gods is closely linked to not wanting to piss them off either. Shamans, priests, and smarty pants of all stripes, point to advantages of accepting that certain agents are calling the shots. The traditions that give one a map of this kind are not propositions or credos so much as markers of feedback loops. The desire to know the environment we are operating in is prior to what we call natural or supernatural.

When I spoke of shallow atheism, I was referring to scientism and materialistic determinism. — Jack Cummins

These conceptions are independent; neither are necessary properties of or entailed by atheism. To my mind "shallow atheism" denotes a lack of belief in some gods but not others (i.e. all gods).

It is interesting that you resuscitated this thread because I have been thinking about the theism/debate recently. It is an extremely complex area and I am sure that there are many forms of 'shallow' theism. I know that you have read Spinoza and interpret it slightly differently from his initial position of pantheism.

Part of the issue which I see is the question as to whether there is a 'higher power' or not, which may come down to whether spirit or 'the supernatural' exist in any meaningful way. Or, are they mere projections of the human imagination? I am inclined to think that there is a transcendent realm. I was also interested in the ideas of Whitehead, as described to me by @Gnomon in my recent thread on panpsychism. This involves an emphasis on the transcendent and the imminent as processes. There is nature but does anything exist beyond this, as source.

Generally, I am interested in comparative worldviews, especially Buddhism, which does not believe in a specific deity, but allows for some kind of transcendent levels of consciousness.

Also, I am interested in the evolution of magic and religion as topics in anthropology and religion, especially shamanism. Of course, I am aware that there is a danger of getting carried away with this but I see the shamanic model of reality as one worth considering. Fred Alan Wolf saw shamanism as comparable with the energetic nature of 'quantum reality'.

... whether there is a 'higher power' or not, which may come down to whether spirit or 'the supernatural' exist in any meaningful way. Or, are they mere projections of the human imagination? — Jack Cummins

I agree with Feuerbach: projections.

I am inclined to think that there is a transcendent realm.

More plausibly than not, a "transcendent realm" is an example of a "mere projection". :sparkle:

There is nature but does anything exist beyond this, as [the] source.

If "nature" has an edge, or limit, then "beyond" makes sense. Afaik, "nature" does not have an edge, or limit (i.e. is finite yet unbounded), therefore, imo, your question, Jack, doesn't make sense. Explain why "nature" requires a "source" (that is, why isn't the "source" itself also "nature"?)

... 'quantum reality'.

How is that different from reality? "Quantum reality" seems to me another woo-woo phrase that doesn't make sense.

Fuererbach's 'projections' raise the question as to whether God created man in his own image or vice versa. Ultimately, this is a matter of speculation, and problematic, as AJ Ayer argued. But, the question of source does seem important and is connected to the issue of how did something come from nothing?

Separating mind and matter is an issue as the two are bound up intricately. That is why I go towards the position of non-dualism. I have been rereading Iris Murdoch's 'Existentialists and Mystics' recently. She shifts her views at various points from reading diverse authors, including Kierkergaard, Sartre, Plato and Simone Weil. The general gist of her exploration comes up with a form of nature mysticism, which does not involve belief in 'God'.

Murdoch does not get into aspects of physics as such, but her writing does hinge around the nature of explanations, including language and images. Here, the issue of 'quantum physics' can be questioned in relation to 'woo woo' philosophy.

If quantum physics is taken literally, as a definitive description of 'reality' it becomes as fanciful as many religious arguments. Quantum physics is only a model, but one which takes into account the 'virtual' nature of -reality'. It replaces clockwork, mechanistic explanations including a 'God' out there, heaven 'up above' and 'hell below'. But, it does point to an unknown 'invisible source' from my point of view. If nothing else this may mean that I am a mystic in the Platonic sense.

I was also interested in the ideas of Whitehead, as described to me by Gnomon in my recent thread on panpsychism. This involves an emphasis on the transcendent and the imminent as processes. There is nature but does anything exist beyond this, as source.

Generally, I am interested in comparative worldviews, especially Buddhism, which does not believe in a specific deity, but allows for some kind of transcendent levels of consciousness. — Jack Cummins

I am currently reading a voluminous book written by a quantitative scientist, James Glattfelder : The Sentient Cosmos, which he labels a "synthesis of science and philosophy". About half the book is about immanent & empirical topics, and the other half are transcendent & theoretical : what would call woo-woo, based on his prejudice against the notion of transcendence. Apparently, his non-transcendent religion is Scientism. But, philosophers, such as Whitehead, do not limit their philosophical explorations to the material world, or to empirical methods.

Glattfelder seems to be amenable to Panpsychism, but he tends to avoid the fraught term "God", and substitutes more ambiguous terms such as "Source", "One", "intelligence", etc. Personally, I don't agree with his top-down notion of the the human brain as a kind of receiver tuned-in to the wavelengths of the Cosmic Consciousness. But, he is an extremely well-informed scientist, mathematician, and philosopher. So, I hear him out. And I'm learning a lot about various historical & modern attempts to understand where the immanent world came from, and why it is as it is, and how Life & Mind emerged from the random roilings of atoms. :smile:

PS___ Comparative Religion : Glattfelder also discusses an array of ancient & recent attempts to understand the place of Man in a material world : Shamanism, Hinduism (Brahman/Atman), Jainism, Buddhism, Taoism, Kabbalah, Christianity, Sufism, Sikhism, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, etc. This variety could be confusing, but he finds a common theme among them. I am not religious in any sense, but I am philosophical. And a broad knowledge of philosophical concepts provides a time-tested foundation for your personal worldview.

I find that the idea of 'God' and what it means for such a being to exist to be one of the most extremely perplexing philosophy problems. — Jack Cummins

I have a problem with believing God is a being with a personality, likes, and dislikes, just like a real person. For sure, this is a humanized god, but originally it is not the personal god many people want, so Jesus is deified and created as the "loving god" we want. Jesus replaced the jealous, revengeful, and punishing god, who was feared, along with fearing Satan, for over a thousand years. Not until our bellies were full did we think god is a "loving god".

When you speak of Zeus and Shiva, they are images of what greater reality may exist. From my reading of Jung I came to see the Judaeo- Christian picture developed in the Bible as an image. My mother told me how at times she used to imagine God the father as the old man and Jesus as the young man. — Jack Cummins

All the gods are concepts. Whenever the ancients realized a new concept, they created a god to explain that concept. This got completely out of control, and an Egyptian pharaoh's grandfather ordered a search of the archives for the real god. This led to the pharaoh building a city for this new god and forbidding the worship of all other gods. That made things very bad for all those priests who profited from the belief in many gods, so they attempted to wipe that pharaoh out of history. They ended up preserving his memory when they crushed and buried his city.

However, I am not sure that the energy from the moment of the Big Bang is not also a unifying energy evolving into self-consciousness.

But, the question of source does seem important ... — Jack Cummins

Again, I say: Explain why "nature" requires a "source" (that is, why isn't the "source" itself also "nature"?)

... and is connected to the issue of how did something come from nothing?

Why assume "something" is not uncaused? not infinte? not eternal?

Besides, 99.9% of every "something" consists of empty space – "nothing" – so they are complementary, coexisting, physical states (like e.g. atomism's 'atoms & void' or daoism's 'yin & yang'). Iirc, both Aristotle¹ and Spinoza posit that 'the universe is eternal'.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternity_of_the_world#Aristotle [1]

And don't forget: 'why there is something and not just nothing' is because nothing causes or prevents something from Coming to be And Continuing to be And Ceasing to be. :smirk:

F[eu]rerbach's 'projections' raise the question as to whether God created man in his own image or vice versa.

 
No, he answers "the question": man creates god.²

https://philosophynow.org/issues/85/Feuerbach_Love_and_Atheism [2]

How nice to see this subject still being addressed.

Why does it matter if a "God" exists?

A religious person would point to the promise of eternal life. That requires a God of religion: one requiring worship and perhaps a moral life, and providing a life after death. The problem is that this package is rather implausible.

By contrast, the traditional arguments for God's existence only (provisionally) establish a creator and ontological ground of reality (i.e. deism). So what if such a being exists? The only reason I can imagine is that it statisfies a curiosity about the nature of existence. But does it? Should it?

At best, these arguments only define a coherent metaphysical framework. Being coherent means its possibly true. But the frameworks that entail a God necessarily depend on questionable metaphysical assumptions. Why should this satisfy anyone's curiosity?

There are metaphysical frameworks that don't include a God. Similarly, they depend on metaphysical assumptions - so they can't be established as true either. But...

No metaphysical theory can be tested, verified, or falsified. Still, we can compare different theories in terms of explanatory power and parsimony. A deistic theory can answer all questions (magic can explain ANYthing), but it loses parsimony by assuming something as complex as a deity just happens to exist without cause or explanation. To me, this seems sufficient reason to assume a deity does not exist. One can still explore metaphyical systems to satisfy curiosity, but the theistic ones seem rather far-fetched.

That said, in my experience debating these issues with theists- they tend to embrace the deistic arguments because it helps to rationalize what they already believe, or want to believe.

I go towards the position of non-dualism.

I am a mystic in the Platonic sense. — Jack Cummins

Square this circle for me – "non-dualism" + "the Platonic sense".

I am trying to square the circle for myself of the issue of non-duality with Platonism. That is why I am in the midst of reading Murdoch's interpretation of Plato. I have read Bohm's ideas on the idea of the implicate and explicate order. However, this would correspond with an interpretation of the Forms aspects of invisible metaphysics.

With the idea of non-duality, or substance dualism there is still a question of emphasis on the physical or the spiritual. That is where it gets difficult. That is why the notion of God may be useful, but not necessarily in the form of the deity of mainstream Abrahamic religions. It may come down to the idea of The Tao, the unity at the paradox of all dualities.

With the question of God (or gods) as a Being, that is where the idea of the supernatural realm comes in. Some religious thinkers even posit the idea of a 'divine hierarchy', including realms of angels and archangels as intermediate between God and human beings.

Some cognitive thinkers, such as Jesse Bering, speak of as the 'God instinct' as an aspect of evolutionary psychology. The idea of God may even be hardwired into the brain, although critical reason has led human beings to question the existence of God or gods. There were atheists amongst the ancients though, just as there theists in the twentieth first century.

Generally, one needs to step into the frame of ancient human beings in considering this. .One significant book is, 'The Bicameral Mind: The Origins of Consciousness' by Julian Jaynes. He maintains that ancient people's religious experiences were comparable with those of people diagnosed with schizophrenia. Of course, this cannot be proven empirically. However, what Jaynes is arguing is that at some point, human beings did not have a distinct separate sense of inner experience and the objective world. The figures of inner experience, such as Moses' sense of receiving the Ten Commandments amidst a burning bush were taken as 'real' in an objective sense.

Such a picture would be compatible with the poetic visionary descriptions of Homer, and it is possible that Plato also came from this angle. Myth and religious experience arose in conjunction with the development of song, poetry and language. Graham Hancock suggests that the idea of the supernatural corresponds with the development of the symbolic dimensions of human experience.

I follow your mention of the Tao and the notions of unity or separation. I have a problem with believing we are separate from God. The Egyptians believed in a trinity of the soul. One dies with our body, the second part is judged and may or may not go on to the good life, and the third part returns to the Tao. The Egyptians didn't develop a concept of Toa, but we don't have a better word for it.

Following what you just said, our knowledge is limited to our language. I prefer Eastern concepts to Western ones. I resent making the Trinity a trinity of God because that forces the authority of God as separate from our being. That is opposed to the notion of Tao. We are part of Tao. Not separate from the Tao. The authority is within me. It is not separate from my being. I do not fear being rejected by a God, because I am part of God/Tao.

I think our separation from God is an illusion made essential to our being, which is ego. I know I am not one with God because I have so many imperfections. Now I have a choice. I can let go of my ego and be one with God/Tao, or maintain my ego and separateness.

Bohm's ideas on the idea of the implicate and explicate order. — Jack Cummins

David Bohm's conjecture is, I think, much closer to Spinoza's 'substance & modes' than to Plato's 'forms & appearances' because "the explicate order" (à la natura naturata (e.g. waves)) is immanent to – does not transcend – "the implicate order" (à la natura naturans (e.g. ocean)) as the forms do transcend appearances ("Plato's Cave").

What about this post, Jack ...

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/1009977

I just wish to add that I am raising the debate over some analysis of the debate between theism and atheism. However, I do see it in the context of the wide range of philosophy perspectives historically and geographically. In this respect, I am raising the area between theism/ atheism, but also other possibilities, including pantheism and the various constructions of reality which may be developed. — Jack Cummins

If pressed, I don't label myself as Theist or Atheist, but as Deist*1. That's because I am uncertain & ambivalent about God, but convinced that some transcendent creative power is necessary to make sense of our contingent world. Deism is not a religion, but a philosophical position*1. Regarding who or what created the Cosmos, all I know is that empirical cosmological knowledge only goes back to the black box known as the Big Bang Singularity. Any information prior to the beginning of space-time is pure speculation, based on hypothetical reasoning, not empirical observation. If you don't care about such perennial philosophical questions as First Cause & Prime Mover though, then peace be unto you.

I am not a Pantheist or Panpsychist, but I do postulate an alternative Pan-power : Energy, or as I like to call it : EnFormAction*2. In that view, the creative power to transform is universal, and responsible for all developments since the initial Bang. Whitehead's Process philosophy*3 also presumes some kind of universal directional causal power to explain complexifying evolution sparked by the Bang. But he didn't call it Panpsychism ; others added that label. In the quote below, "matter and experience" may be similar to Aristotle's Hylomorph (matter + form).

Since Matter is subject to the degradation of Entropy though, it cannot be eternal, but Form is an abstract mental/mathematical concept that is not subject to thermodynamics. So, the power to create and transform matter may be the transcendent force that is necessary to explain the Big Bang. What would you call the Source of that Cosmic Causation? And in what sense could it exist prior to the emergence of space-time? :smile:


*1. Deism is the philosophical belief in a creator God who established the universe and its natural laws but does not intervene in its ongoing affairs, particularly human events. Deists rely on human reason and the observation of nature, rather than divine revelation or religious scriptures, to understand the divine. This belief system, prominent during the Enlightenment, views God as a supreme architect or "divine clockmaker" who created the world and then left it to operate on its own.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=deism+philosophical+position+on+god

*2. EnFormAction :
Metaphorically, it's the Will-power of G*D, which is the First Cause of everything in creation. Aquinas called the Omnipotence of God the "Primary Cause", so EFA is the general cause of everything in the world. Energy, Matter, Gravity, Life, Mind are secondary creative causes, each with limited application.
# All are also forms of Information, the "difference that makes a difference". It works by directing causation from negative to positive, cold to hot, ignorance to knowledge. That's the basis of mathematical ratios (Greek "Logos", Latin "Ratio" = reason). A : B :: C : D. By interpreting those ratios we get meaning and reasons.
# The concept of a river of causation running through the world in various streams has been interpreted in materialistic terms as Momentum, Impetus, Force, Energy, etc, and in spiritualistic idioms as Will, Love, Conatus, and so forth. EnFormAction is all of those.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html
Note --- EFA is similar to Schopenhauer's Will to survive (biological evolution), and to Nietzche's Will to power (physical Energy), and to Bergson's Vital Energy (self organization). Matter is made of Energy, but what is Energy made of????

*3. Alfred North Whitehead developed a form of process panpsychism, a philosophy suggesting that all reality is composed of fundamental "actual occasions" with both mental and physical aspects, rather than inert material objects. This process-relational view holds that everything, from quanta to galaxies, has a "subjective" or experiential "inside" and an objective, physical "outside". He didn't use the term "panpsychism" himself but argued for a system where matter and experience are equally fundamental, with matter as the objective pole and mind as the subjective pole of these underlying actual entities.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=alfred+north+whitehead+panpsychism
Note --- Whitehead's term "experience" may be misleading. I think it's more like Wheeler's "bit" of Information.

I agree with both mind/matter as essential and wonder about how this totally may be 'God', Human beings could be conceived as cells of consciousness, as well as all the varying lifeforms.

Bearing in mind the ambiguity of Whitehead's term 'experience' as equivalent to 'information' I wonder how he regards the symbolic dimension. Is it like part of a computer? I once had a friend, who in the midst of 'psychosis' banged his head on the floor and exclaimed, 'God is a computer'. It struck me that he had made an important statement. The idea of 'God' could be seen as a model of information, as known to us in the age of 'virtual reality'. Similarly, the nature of computer simulation could be seen as an alternative to the anthropomorphic conceptions of absolute reality, as the sum of all parts, or 'God'.

It is interesting that Bohm's model may be nearer to Spinoza's model than to that of Plato. I do struggle with reading Spinoza and it is possible that not enough attention has been paid to him due to the obscurity of his writing. It almost seems 'esoteric', although I admit that it may be my own shortcoming that I find him difficult to read. I only have a downloaded copy of 'Ethics' and, perhaps, if I got a paper version I may get on better with it.

Yes, the concept of something from 'nothing's does give rise to the idea of 'the void'. I have always seen this as a parallel between the idea of the unconscious, after I came across a book, 'God and the Unconscious' by Victor White, when I was at a teenager. The book is based on a dialogue between Victor White, a theologian, with Jung.

Of course, I know that I am so influenced by Jung, as you are with Spinoza. I wonder how can the Jungian worldview can be compared and contrasted with that of Spinoza?

I know this might seem like threadshitting but I just want to offer a conflicting view.

I've never seen "is there a god" to be one of the significant, or difficult, philosophical questions.

Whether a deity exists is a simple claim in itself, and doesn't actually affect much.

It only becomes important by association. Eg if we claim God is the cause of everything existing, then God becomes important because how / why anything exists is an important (and difficult) question. It's like if I were to say Whether midiclorians exist is the most important philosophical question, because midiclorians are the source of morality.

Otherwise it's just the claim that there's a big daddy figure. That there's no evidence for, and it's pretty easy to explain where the concept came from in terms of human psychology.

The question of separation from 'God' is interesting and I also can relate to Eastern metaphysics. For example, Buddhism doesn't speak of a specific deity. However, it does believe in a spiritual dimension, which could be described as the symbolic dimension. This is only realised in the human mind, due to the limits of human knowledge of absolute 'reality' Of.course, it may be relative as opposed to some absolute 'mind's eye' of 'God'.

Some Eastern thinkers speak of an 'overself' or 'oversoul' which may be about the stream of consciousness arising in experience. I think that this is how William James understood religious or spiritual experiences. Here, spirituality may be about numinous experiences, such as depicted in the arts, as opposed to just those categorised within the domain of 'traditional 'religious beliefs and thinking.

I am aware that the angle which you come from is a slightly different one of asking how important the question is. This may really be the central one for thinking about as some would question the significance of the philosophy of religion. To what extent is the concept of God outdated and mere speculation?

I started out with an interest in how to live even when I had not fully questioned religion. I had issues about the nature of reality and about ethics. I was not sure to what extent ethics and issues of religion were separate. However, in my reading I came to realise that whether we believe in God or spiritual reality affects one's entire approach to life.

That is not to say that ethics only matters to religious believers at all. It is not as simple as 'if God does not exist everything is permitted' (Dostoevsky). Some of the secular humanists have constructed ethical frameworks which are not dependent on the existence of God or spiritual reality. Morality doesn't rely on a belief in punishment from God in an afterlife.

However, whether or not one believes in God does affect one's approach and interpretation of all that happens in life. That is why I think that it is still an important question and will still matter as long as philosophy exists.

I updated the thread title. It was a thread I started some time ago in the past, which resurfaced. I have updated the title to reflect the direction it is taking.

The issue of God's existence is one which has gone on and on in philosophy. It can go round and round in circles to the point of being boring. Equally, it remains a heated matter, and may show how philosophy can become justification of preference of beliefs. It can be asked does it still matter whether 'God' exists. I maintain that it does, because how it affects one's stance to understanding life. It is a recurrent philosophical issue and will remain so, even though it cannot be proven for or against the existence of God.