Proofs of God

After reading about the various proofs of the existence of God, identify which of these arguments seems to be the best, and explain why you think so. Complete your response by reflecting on why philosophers have sought for thousands of years to provide such proofs, and whether it is necessary to do so.

My personal opinion is that it is not absolutely necessary for philosophers to seek for proofs of the existence of God, however feel that doing so makes more people believers and make those who already believe supporting arguments incase their beliefs are ever challenged. The argument that proves the existence of God best is the Cosmological, or First Cause Proof. It states that if the universe exist , something bigger than the universe must have brought it to existence. There is also Aquinas's argument of contingent beings and because contingent beings exist, then a non-contingent being (GOD) must have caused the contingent beings to exist. Several examples are given from our text in which it follows a chain of causes, which would in the end lead us to God.

If you were asked to defeat the computer in the Turing Test (described in our book), what types of questions would you ask it? Explain why you think these questions would be the type to "reveal" the computer to be a computer? Why would these responses have to be given by a human being? (If you don't think there are such questions, you will need to explain what, if anything, shows that human beings are unique, and how it shows that.)

This one is quite difficult. I guess a computer can be programmed to lie and give human like responses for any particular question. What distinguishes a human from a computer is feelings, emotions, and creativity. I would ask the following questions:

- Why did your mother name you what she did? (Normally there is an interesting story behind your name, the computer would not have a story to tell, and would probably answer very short and general terms)

- What personal aspirations do you wish to accomplish within the next five years? (A human being has goals, computers do not. A computer will not be able to answer in terms of timeframe and may be very material answers)