How can we prove that God exists?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
so how can we prove that Krishna consciousness is the right thing? are you asking about how can we prove God exists? what is the question exactly? the two are very different things that God exists it is said that believers need no reasons non-believers accept no reasons so so there are some people who will never accept any reasons those are the people who are who are determined to be atheists it is said that a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still some people they will just not accept so better not spend too much time with them but there are some people who are reasonable so with them the way even science proves things about history about ancient things for example how did the universe come about? how did life come about? how did the continents drift apart? these are things which science cannot observe and conduct experiments on we cannot if the continents have drifted apart we cannot tell the continents please join together and drift again we will observe you and we will do an experiment no these are one time events which have happened so how does science come to know about this? it is called as the process is called as inference to best explanation inference to best explanation means we observe ok this is here, this is here, this is here what is the best explanation for all this? that is inference so for example if you read a detective novel in a detective novel find that this particular person has been murdered now at 3 o’clock in the afternoon someone went into the house, he was alive 9 o’clock he was found dead then you look at the camera and see who all came between 3 o’clock to 9 o’clock you find that oh there is one 5 year old boy came he could not have pushed a knife there is one 80 year old house maid she came she also could not have pushed a knife there is a 23 year old butler who came he must have been the he must have been the killer now this is an inference how do we get out of this inference? we don’t exactly prove it in the sense that we cannot replicate it but it is a reasonable inference so like that what we can say is there are broadly 4 lines of argument which can point to the existence of god one I talked about already is everything has to have a beginning that if you go back you exist because your parents existed their parents existed their parents existed so the point where all this stops that point is god so this is the argument from origins that god is rather than thinking that ok this Krishna is god we are not talking about Krishna is god we are talking about god exists so god is the cause of all causes so everything has to have a cause the point where everything stops that is god and that cannot be a lump of matter if there is a lump of matter it will not create a building if there is a builder the builder can use a lump of matter to create a building so the original starting point has to be a conscious being it cannot be an unconscious lump of matter so this is one argument that everything has to have a beginning and the beginning has to be conscious that beginning conscious cause of all causes that is god the second argument is the what we would call as the argument of coherence or design not exactly design but say if everything had just come by chance then our brains are product of chance the world out there is product of chance and yet what happens is that the world out there functions according to laws which can be understood by the brain in here say f is equal to gm1 m2 upon r square you know this ok how old are you? 9 so basically there are mathematical equations which explain how things work so science is able to find out patterns science is able to find out the way things work in nature because things behave predictably a fruit falls over here a fruit falls in the next house also a fruit falls in England also a fruit falls in India also so why is everything behaving in an orderly fashion everywhere? what is the source of the order in the universe? a source of order there is a famous Indian mathematician he said that an equation for me has no meaning unless it represents a thought of god so why is there order in nature? because there is a ordering principle the ordering principle in nature that is god if we see that everything works very well you come to a house and you find everything works very well you know who is running the house? nobody is running the house, it is going on by chance if things were going on by chance the house would be disorderly so if the house is going on in a very orderly way that means there has to be some ordering principle over there so that way we can understand that there is god third argument is called the moral argument moral argument means that we all have a sense of right and wrong if we are simply materialistic creatures driven by the urge for survival say when the twin towers collapsed when the terrorists attacked and the twin towers collapsed, many firefighters went inside to try to save people now if we are simply biological creatures driven by the urge for survival I have to live why should I go into that building, that building may collapse we will run out of the building but when those people ran inside, we consider them heroes so if we were simply materialistic creatures programmed for survival then what would we have is the principle of survival of the fittest which operates in nature but in human life there is a higher principle not just survival of the fittest there is sacrifice by the fittest if a person is drowning, somebody else who is healthier, they jump into the river and they try to rescue that person why do they do that? there is something inside us which wants us to live for something more than survival if we are simply biological creatures we will be living simply for survival there is a non-biological part within us which prompts us towards the right action even when it is going to be risky for our survival and we don’t think that person was so foolish, why did that person go into the twin tower why did this person jump into the river we consider that person to be noble so where does the sense of right and wrong come from? it cannot come from material source there is a transcendental source of morality who has given us our innate sense of morality our sense of right and wrong now different people may disagree what is right and what is wrong but everybody agrees that there is something right and something wrong now suppose say you are walking in a class and suddenly your friend comes and pushes you why did you do that? oh I am sorry I didn’t see you when you ask why did you do that he explains I am sorry I didn’t see you what it means is he is also acknowledging that pushing you was wrong pushing you was wrong but he pushed you because he didn’t see you so the point is we all have a sense of right and wrong where does the sense of right and wrong come from? at a material level there is no reason for the sense of right and wrong to be present especially when the sense of right tells us to do something which is actually risky for our survival and still we do it this is the moral argument for the existence of God and the last is purpose we see that everything in life we see it in terms of a purpose we see it in the context of things happening for a purpose so we study lets put it very simply we have thirst and there is water out there we have hunger and there is food out there we need light to see and there is light out there so all our fundamental needs are fulfilled people all over the world throughout history, throughout geography have actually intrinsically they look for something more what is the ultimate purpose of life now where is that understanding there is something more to life as I said Newton, he could have just taken the fruit and eaten it but he had an intelligence by which he what made this fall so just as all of us our fundamental needs there is a fulfillment in nature there is thirst in the body, there is water in nature there is hunger in the body there is food in nature there is light needed for the eyes there is light in nature so like that that the human heart longs for something higher and that higher thing that is there that is God wow all this may seem very complicated but a simple way to understand this is that suppose you draw a rose and after drawing a rose a friend says that how did you draw this rose please tell me ok I saw, I did like this I did like this you are a brilliant person you made such a nice rose now when we see a rose we immediately understand that this must be drawn by a very artistic person now if there is not just an art of a rose if there is a painting if there is a craft ok the rose is shaped like a rose it has nice petals coming out red colour there is a stem below this craftsman must be brilliant a rose painting has only one attribute of a rose that is colour a rose craft has two attributes there is a there is a colour and there is shape so now the even one attribute colour being present we say the artist must be very intelligent if two attributes are present the craftsman must be really good now if we consider the original rose the original rose how many attributes does it have it has it has shape it has colour, it has shape it has fragrance, it has texture touch it, it is very soft it has taste also, people drink rose water so it has all these attributes so if one attribute requires an intelligent source if two attributes require even more intelligent source and five attributes how much more intelligent source will it require so that way by looking at the world we can infer that there must be an intelligent artistic source of that world and that source is God ok