How to find out that God exists. Does God really exist? Is there a God? There are numerous theories that confirm

Does God really exist and do you believe in God? This is the question you need to ask yourself first. The answer determines the direction of life, efforts, motivation, and ultimately happiness or suffering. Of course, this worries few people because everything seems fine anyway, but for the time being. One way or another, losses are inevitable.

After all, if there is no God, then you can do whatever you want: “Drink, walk and have fun!” But from the example of others or our own, we can be convinced that this is not an option to live - this is degradation. So there are laws, but who created them, who created the flower, the tree, the sky and the earth? Obviously not a person, because we don’t even fully know how we ourselves work.

For example, we are made up of cells, but the cell itself has such a complex structure that scientists will never fully understand it. It's not like creating something like that. This is an endless topic. A creation must have a Creator, or at least something from which everything came.

This world is very interestingly structured, there are no accidents or injustice in it, but we are so limited to see this unity and harmony. We do not give birth to ourselves and do not die at will, and with rare exceptions, we do not even know when we will die. So who are we, masters or servants?..

WHO IS GOD?

Religion can only be called a worldview in which there is the thought of God, the idea of God, the recognition of God, the belief in God. If there is no this, there is no religion. We can call such a faith whatever we like: shamanism, fetishism, astrology, magic...

But this is no longer a religion, it is a pseudo-religion, a degeneration of religion. Today I would like to talk to you about a fundamental issue for any religion, of course, for Christianity - the doctrine of God.

The question of God is not simple. You will have to hear more than once: “Here you, Christians, tell us about God, prove that He exists. And Who is He? Who are you talking about when you say the word “God”?” We’ll talk to you about this today.

I’ll start from very far away, don’t be surprised and be patient for a minute. Plato, a student of Socrates, has this idea: first principles (simple things that have no complexity) cannot be defined. They are impossible to describe. Indeed, we can define complex things through simple ones.

And what about simple ones? If a person has never seen the color green, how do we explain to him what it is? There is only one thing left to do - to offer: “Look.” It is impossible to tell what the color green is. Father Pavel Florensky once asked his cook, the simplest, uneducated woman: “What is the sun?”

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Tempted her. She looked at him in bewilderment: “The sun? Well, look what the sun is.” He was very pleased with this answer. Indeed, there are things that cannot be explained, they can only be seen.

To the question “Who is God?” I have to answer like this. Christianity says that God is O standing Being, the simplest of all that exists. It's simpler than the sun. He is not a reality that we can talk about and through this understand and cognize. It can only be “seen”. Only by “looking” at Him can one recognize Who He is.

You don’t know what the sun is, look; you don't know who God is - look. How? - “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8). I repeat, not all things lend themselves to verbal description or definition. We cannot explain to a blind person what light is, or to a deaf person what the sound of the third octave or D of the first is.

Of course, there are any number of things that we talk about and explain them quite clearly. But there are many who go beyond the boundaries of conceptual expression. They can only be known through direct And denition.

Do you know what was called theology in pre-Christian Greco-Roman literature and who was called a theologian? Theology meant stories about the gods, their adventures and deeds. And the authors of these stories were called theologians: Homer, Hesiod, Orpheus. (I won’t say what we find with them.)

So much for theology and theologians. Of course, there are interesting ideas about God among Anaxagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and other ancient philosophers, but these ideas were not popular.

What is called theology in Christianity? The term "theology" is the Russian translation of the Greek word "theology". In my opinion, this is a very unfortunate translation, because the second part of the word “theology” - “logos” has about 100 meanings (the first - Theos, or Theos, is clear to everyone - God).

The ancient Greek-Russian dictionary of I. Dvoretsky contains 34 nests of meanings of the word “logos”. Each slot contains several more values. But if we talk about the basic religious and philosophical meaning of this concept, then most correctly, I believe, it corresponds to “knowledge”, “cognition”, “in And Denia."

The translators took the most common meaning - “word”, and translated theology with such a vague concept as theology. But essentially, theology should be translated as knowledge of God, knowledge of God, knowledge of God. At the same time, knowledge in Christianity does not mean at all what the pagans thought about - not words and reasoning about God, but a special, spiritual experience of direct experience, comprehension of God by a pure, holy person.

The Monk John Climacus formulated this thought very precisely and laconically: “The perfection of purity is the beginning of theology.” Other fathers call this theoria, i.e. contemplation, which occurs in a state of special silence - hesychia (hence hesychasm).

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The Monk Barsanuphius the Great spoke beautifully about this silence: “Silence is better and more amazing than all stories. Our fathers kissed him and worshiped him, and were glorified by him.” You see how ancient, patristic Christianity speaks, or rather spoke, about theology.

It is the comprehension of God, which is realized only through the correct Christian life. In theological science, this is called the method of spiritually experiential knowledge of God; it gives a Christian the opportunity to truly comprehend Him and through this, understand the true meaning of His Revelation given in the Holy Scriptures.

There are two other methods in theological science, and although they are purely rational, they also have a certain significance for the correct understanding of God. These are apophatic (negative) and cataphatic (positive) methods.

You've probably heard of them. The apophatic method proceeds from the unconditional truth about the fundamental difference of God from all created things and therefore His incomprehensibility and inexpressibility by human concepts. This method essentially prohibits saying anything about God, since any human word about Him will be false.

To understand why this is so, pay attention to where all our concepts and words come from, how are they formed? That's how. We see, hear, touch, etc. something and name it accordingly. They saw it and named it. They discovered a planet and named it Pluto, discovered a particle and gave it the name neutron. There are concrete concepts, there are general ones, there are abstract ones, there are categories.

Let's not talk about this now. This is how the language is replenished and developed. And since we communicate with each other and convey these names and concepts, we understand each other. We say: table, and we all understand what we are talking about, since all these concepts are formed on the basis of our collective earthly experience.

But they all describe real things very, very incompletely, imperfectly, and give only the most general idea of the subject. Heisenberg, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, rightly wrote: “The meanings of all concepts and words formed through the interaction between the world and ourselves cannot be precisely determined...

Therefore, through rational thinking alone one can never arrive at absolute truth" ( Heisenberg V. Physics and philosophy. - M., 1963. - P. 67). It is interesting to compare this thought of a modern scientist and thinker with the statement of a Christian ascetic who lived a thousand years before Heisenberg and did not know any quantum mechanics - St. Simeon the New Theologian.

This is what he says: “I... mourned the human race, because, looking for extraordinary evidence, people bring human concepts, and things, and words and think that they are depicting the Divine nature, that nature which none of the angels or people could see, nor name" (Rev. Simeon the New Theologian. Divine hymns. Sergiev Posad, 1917. P. 272).

So, you see what all our words mean. If they are imperfect even in relation to earthly things, then all the more are they conditional when they relate to the realities of the spiritual world, to God. Now you understand why the apophatic method is right - because, I repeat, that no matter what words we define God, all these the definitions will be incorrect. They are limited, they are earthly, they are taken from our earthly experience.

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And God is above all created things. Therefore, if we tried to be absolutely precise and settled on the apophatic method of knowledge, we would simply have to remain silent. But what would faith and religion become then? How we could preach and generally talk about true religion or false.

After all, the essence of every religion is the doctrine of God. And if we could not say anything about Him, we would cross out not only religion, but also the very possibility of understanding the meaning of human life.

However, there is another approach to the doctrine of God. Although formally incorrect, it is in reality as correct, if not more so, than the apophatic one. We are talking about the so-called. cataphatic method. This method states: we must talk about God. And they should because this or that understanding of God fundamentally determines human thought, human life and activity.

Consider the difference between the following statements: I cannot say anything about God; I say that God is Love; I say that He is hatred? Of course, there is a great difference, for every indication of the properties of God is a guideline, a direction, a norm for our human life.

Even the Apostle Paul writes about the pagans that everything that can be known about God, they could know through looking at the world around them. We are talking about some properties of God, about how you perceive some of the actions of God, this simple Being. And we call these the properties of God. His wisdom, His goodness, His mercy and so on. These are only individual manifestations of the Divine that we can observe on ourselves and on the world around us. God is a simple Being.

Therefore, although all our words are inaccurate, incomplete and imperfect, nevertheless, Divine Revelation for our teaching says quite definitely that God is Love, not hatred, Good, not evil, Beauty, not ugliness... Christianity says: “ God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16).

It turns out that the teaching about God-Love is not some kind of uncertainty, abstraction, no, it is the very essence of human life, He is a really existing Ideal. Therefore, “he who does not love his brother remains in death”; therefore, “everyone who hates his brother is a murderer”; therefore, “no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (1 John 3:14,15).

In other words, know, man, if you have hostility towards even one person, you are mistaken and bring yourself harm and suffering. Just think about what a great criterion is given to a person by the positive teaching about God and His properties. By it I can evaluate myself, my behavior, my actions.

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I know the great truth: what is good and what is evil and, therefore, what will bring me joy, happiness, and what will insidiously destroy me. Is there anything greater and great for a person?! This is the strength and significance of the cataphatic method.

You understand now Why there is a Revelation of God, which is given in human concepts, images, parables, Why Does He, inexplicable and indescribable, tell us about Himself in our harsh words? If He told us in angelic language, we would not understand anything.

It would be the same as if someone came in and spoke Sanskrit. We would open our mouths in bewilderment, although it is very possible that he would communicate the greatest truths - we would still remain completely ignorant.

So, how does Christianity teach about God? On the one hand, it says that God is Spirit and, as a simple Being, cannot be expressed by any human words and concepts, for any word is, if you like, a distortion. On the other hand, we stand before the fact of God’s Revelation, given to us in the Holy Scriptures and the experience of many saints.

That is, God speaks about Himself to man in his language, and although these words are imperfect and incomplete in themselves, they are necessary for man, since they indicate to him what he must do in order to come, at least in part, to saving knowledge , V And God's day.

And that knowledge of God is partly possible, the Apostle writes about this: “Now we see as if through a dark glass, fortune-telling, but then face to face; Now I know in part, but then I will know, even as I am known” (1 Cor. 13; 12). And the Lord Himself says: “This is eternal life, yes know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3). Earthly life is the beginning of this eternal life.

God the Lord condescends to our limited understanding and expresses the truth to us in our words. I think that when we die and are freed from this “conceptual” language, we will look with a smile at our ideas about God, the spiritual world, angels, eternity... which we had, even reading Revelation.

should you believe in god

Then, on the one hand, we will understand all the wretchedness of these ideas of ours, on the other hand, we will see how good this hidden Revelation of God about Himself, about man, about the world was for us, for it showed us the path, means and direction of saving life. That is, all this has a direct bearing on the spiritual life of a Christian.

We are all filled with passions, we are all proud, we are all proud, but there is a huge difference between people. Which? One sees this in himself and fights with himself, but the other does not see it and does not want to see it. It turns out that the positive (cataphatic) teaching about God gives a person the correct criteria, measures with the help of which he can correctly evaluate himself if he really wants to be a believer.

Of course, he may hate his brother, calling himself a believer, but then, if his conscience is not yet completely seared and his mind is not completely darkened, he can understand what demonic state he is in. You know, there are natural and supernatural religions. Natural religions are nothing more than an expression in images and concepts, myths and stories of the immediate, natural human sensation of God.

Therefore, such ideas are always either primitively anthropomorphic or intellectually abstract in nature. Here are all kinds of images of gods, filled with all human passions and virtues, here is the divine Nothing, here is the idea of the Platonic Demiurge and the Aristotelian Prime Mover, etc.

But all the truths of these religions and religious-philosophical ideas have a distinctly human origin. Supernatural religions are distinguished by the fact that God Himself makes it known about Himself, who He is. And we see what a stunning difference there is between the Christian understanding of God and that which is outside it. At first glance, both here and there have the same or similar words, but the content of these religions is essentially different from each other.

How striking this difference is, the Apostle Paul beautifully expressed it when he said: “But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews, but foolishness to the Greeks” (1 Cor. 1:23). Really, All specifically Christian truths are fundamentally different from all previous analogues. This is not only the crucified Christ, but also the teaching about the Triune God, about the Logos and His Incarnation, about the Resurrection, about Salvation, etc.

But this needs to be discussed separately. But let’s talk about one of these truths now. There is another unique truth of the Christian teaching about God, which decisively distinguishes Christianity from all other religions, including even the Old Testament religion. We will not find anywhere except Christianity that God is Love and only Love.

Outside of Christianity, we will encounter any ideas about God. At the same time, His highest understanding, to which certain religions and some ancient philosophers came, boiled down to the doctrine of a just Judge, the highest Truth, the most perfect Reason. No one knew that God is Love before Christ.

Here's an example. Our Church has a commission for dialogue with Iranian Muslims. At a meeting last summer, the question of the highest virtue and the highest attribute of God was raised. And it was interesting to hear when Muslim theologians, one after another, said that such a property is justice.

is there a god according to scientists

We answered: “If so, then the computer is the fairest. And don’t you turn to Allah: “O all-merciful and merciful!” They say: “Yes, merciful, but Judge. He judges fairly and this is where his mercy is demonstrated.” Why didn’t the non-Christian consciousness (even if it even called itself Christian) know and don’t know that God is precisely Love and nothing more?

Because we, people, have distorted the very concept of love. In human language, love means: forgiveness, absence of punishment, that is, freedom of arbitrariness. Do what you want, that’s what “love” means in human terms. We forgive a friend everything, but to someone who is unpleasant to us, we cling to every nonsense. Our concept of love has been distorted. Christianity returns to us its true understanding.

What is Christian love? “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Love is sacrifice. But sacrifice is not blind. Look at how Christ responded to evil: “Serpents, brood of vipers.”

He takes a whip and drives him out of the temple, overturning the benches of those selling in it. I remember one episode from the book of Archbishop Alexander of Tien Shan, when he was 14-15 years old. He wrote: I took some book and began to look at a picture in it of horses mating.

And suddenly my mother saw it. I have never seen such anger in her. She was always very gentle and kind, but here she indignantly snatched this book from my hands. It was the anger of love, which I remember with gratitude all my life.”

People do not know what the anger of love is and by love they mean only indulgences. Therefore, if God is Love, then, therefore, do whatever you want. From here it becomes clear why justice has always been and is considered the highest virtue. We see how even in the history of Christianity this highest teaching was gradually belittled and distorted.

The Christian teaching about God-Love was deeply accepted and revealed by the holy fathers. However, this understanding turns out to be psychologically inaccessible to the old man. The most striking example is the Catholic doctrine of salvation. It comes down, in the true words of A.S. Khomyakov, to a continuous litigation between God and man. What kind of relationship is this? Love relationship? No, court.

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If you have committed a sin, bring appropriate satisfaction to the justice of God, for by sin you have offended the Divine. They don’t even understand that God cannot be offended, because otherwise He turns out to be not an all-blessed Being, but the most suffering Being. If God is continually offended by human sins, continually shudders with anger at sinners, then what kind of bliss is there, what love! This is the judge.

Hence the proud doctrine of the merits and even super-due merits of a person, which he supposedly can have before God, was invented. Hence the doctrine of the Sacrifice of Christ as a satisfaction to the justice of God, the doctrine of purgatory, hence indulgences. All Catholic teaching boils down to the Old Testament doctrine: “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” It all flows directly from a deeply distorted understanding of God.

Well, if God is Love, then how can we understand this Love? Are there human sorrows? Yes. Isn't there retribution for human sins? It happens, and what else. We can constantly see this from personal experience and the experience of others. And the Holy Scripture itself speaks of retribution, and so do the holy fathers. What, then, does all this mean, if not that God is Justice? It turns out not.

When the facts of human disasters and suffering are assessed as God’s punishment, that is, as God’s vengeance for sins, they make a big mistake. Who punishes a drug addict, who punishes someone who jumps out from the second or third floor and breaks his arms and legs? Who punishes a drunkard? Is it God’s revenge that he becomes broken, mutilated, sick physically and mentally?

Of course not. These sufferings are the natural consequences of violating the laws of the external world. Exactly the same thing happens to a person when he violates spiritual laws, which are primary and even more significant in our lives than physical, biological, mental laws, etc. And what does God do?

All the commandments of God are a revelation of spiritual laws and a kind of warning to man, just like the laws of the material world. If you want, you can even say this, God begs us people: don’t harm yourself, don’t sin, don’t jump from the fifth floor, go down the stairs; don’t envy, don’t steal, don’t be deceitful, don’t... - you’re crippling yourself with this, for every sin carries its own punishment.

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I remember when I was a child, one winter my mother told me that in the cold you shouldn’t touch the iron door handle with your tongue. As soon as my mother turned away, I immediately licked her and there was a great cry. But I remembered that incident well and since then, imagine, I have never repeated this “sin” again.

So I understood what God’s commandments are and that God is precisely Love, even when it hurts a lot. It was not my mother who punished me, it was not she who stuck my tongue to the iron handle, but I did not want to recognize the laws and was punished. God “punishes” us in the same way. Our sorrows are not God's vengeance. God remains Love and therefore warns us in advance, says, begs: “Do not do this, for this will certainly be followed by your suffering, your sorrows.”

But the idea that God takes revenge and punishes is a widespread and deeply rooted misconception. And a false idea gives rise to corresponding consequences. How many times, I think, have you heard how people are outraged... by God. They rebel against God: “What, am I the most sinful? Why did God punish me?” Either children are born bad, or something burned out, or things go wrong. All you can hear is: “What, am I the most sinful? Here they are worse than me, and they prosper.”

They reach the point of blasphemy, curses, and rejection of God. Where does all this come from? From the perverted, pagan-Jewish understanding of God. They just cannot understand and accept that He does not take revenge on anyone, that He is the greatest Doctor,

Who is always ready to help everyone who has sincerely realized their sins and brought heartfelt repentance. He is above our insults. Remember, in the Apocalypse there are wonderful words: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him, and he with Me” (Rev. 3:20).

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Let us now listen to what the Holy Scripture says about God-Love:

He commands His sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust (Matt. V:45).

For He is good to the ungrateful and the wicked (Luke VI:39).
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).

When tempted, no one should say: God is tempting me; because God is not tempted by evil and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But everyone is tempted, being drawn away and enticed by his own lust (James 1:13-14).

So that you... may... understand the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God (Eph. 3:18-19).

How do the holy fathers look at this issue? We will find in them (as well as in the Holy Scriptures) many statements that directly speak of God’s punishments for sins. But what do these punishments mean, what is their nature? I will read to you their explanations of this serious issue.

Rev. Anthony the Great: “God is good and impassive and unchanging. If anyone, recognizing that it is blessed and true that God does not change, is perplexed, but how He (being such) rejoices over the good, turns away from the evil, is angry with sinners, and when they repent, is merciful to them; then to this it must be said that God does not rejoice and is not angry: for joy and anger are passions. It is absurd to think that the Divine would be good or bad because of human affairs.

God is good and does only good things, but does not harm anyone, being always the same; and when we are good, we enter into communication with God - out of similarity with Him, and when we become evil, we separate from God - out of dissimilarity with Him.

By living virtuously, we become God's people, and by becoming evil, we become rejected from Him; but this does not mean that He is angry with us, but the fact that our sins do not allow God to shine in us, but unite us with demons tormentors.

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If then through prayers and acts of kindness we gain permission from our sins, this does not mean that we have pleased God and changed Him, but that through such actions and our turning to God, having healed the evil that exists in us, we again become capable of tasting God’s goodness; so to say: God turns away from the wicked is the same as saying: the sun is hidden from those deprived of sight"(Instructions of St. Anthony the Great. Philokalia. Vol. 1. §150).

St. Gregory of Nyssa: “For what It is impious to regard the nature of God as subject to any passion of pleasure or mercy or anger, no one will deny this, even those who are little attentive to the knowledge of the truth of Existence.

But although it is said that God rejoices over His servants and is angry with rage at the fallen people, then that He has mercy, and if He has mercy, He also gives generously (Ex. 33:19), but with each of these sayings, I think, the generally accepted word is loud teaches us, that through our properties the providence of God adapts itself to our weakness to those inclined to sin for fear of punishment restrained themselves from evil, previously carried away by sin, did not despair of returning through repentance, looking at mercy...” (St. Gregory of Nyssa. Against Eunomius. Creations. Ch.U1. Book.II.M.1864. P.428-429).

St. John Chrysostom: “When you hear the words: “rage and anger” in relation to God, then do not understand anything human by them: these are words of condescension. Divinity is alien to all such things; it is said this way in order to bring the subject closer to the understanding of cruder people” (Conversation on Ps. VI.-2. Creation. T.V. Book 1. St. Petersburg. 1899. P. 49).

St. John Cassian the Roman: God “can neither be upset by insults nor irritated by the iniquities of people...” (Interview - X1. §6).

All this is very important to understand because it has great implications for spiritual life. We are separated from God by our sins, but God never departs from us, no matter how sinful we are. Therefore for us Always the door of saving repentance remains open. It was not by chance, but providentially, that the first to enter heaven was not the righteous man, but the thief. God is always Love.

This understanding of God also stems from the Christian dogma of God, one in essence and threefold in Hypostases - a dogma, again, new, unknown to the world. There is a fatherly expression: whoever has seen the Trinity has seen Love. The dogma of the Trinity reveals to us the prototype of that love, which is the ideal norm of human life and human relationships.

Multi-hypostatic humanity, although united by nature, is, however, in its present state not at all united in essence, for sin divides people. The mystery of God the Trinity was revealed to humanity so that it would know that only God-like love can make every person a child of God.

Lecture by Professor A.I. Osipov on basic theology, was read at Sretensky Theological Seminary on October 10, 2000 G.

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Georgy Khlebnikov,
Candidate of Philosophical Sciences.

FROM THE EDITOR. By publishing this material, we take a lot of risks. We are taking risks because today many believers and non-believers alike agree that it is impossible to rationally prove the existence of God. True, for various reasons. If the former believe that this is impossible, since God reveals himself to the purity of the heart, and not to the intricacies of the mind, then the latter are convinced that since it is impossible to scientifically testify to the fact of the existence of God, then there is no God, because only science is objective.

However, not everyone knows that there is a centuries-old tradition in Christian culture. In the Middle Ages, such evidence became popular thanks to Catholic scholastic theologians, primarily Anselm of Canterbury and Thomas Aquinas.

True, the scholastics, as a rule, did not address their arguments to atheists - what atheists were in the Middle Ages! – and to believers, in order to confirm faith in a rational way. Since the existence of God seemed obvious, “reasonable,” then in the world, in life, philosophers sought to find obvious, reasonable confirmation of this.

It is interesting to note that in the Orthodox tradition no such school of “proofs of the existence of God” arose. Orthodoxy proceeded and proceeds from a different understanding of the relationship between faith and reason (although neither Orthodox nor Catholics, as a rule, oppose reason and faith). The main proof in Orthodoxy was and remains the person himself, who met God in his heart. And if this meeting did not happen, how can you believe? And if it happened, then a loving heart no longer needs any more arguments!

But many of us were trained in Western philosophy. And our thinking itself has acquired such a Western “flavor”. How many times have we heard: prove, rationally justify that God exists! And if, by and large, such evidence is unlikely to lead a person to God (this is the editorial position), this does not mean that they are absolutely useless. After all, for some they can become the first step on the path to faith...

Today we do not live in medieval Byzantium or Rus', but also not in medieval Western Europe. Much water has passed under the bridge since then, but the believing mind has never ceased to inquisitively seek the rational foundations of its faith, finding new and new evidence of the presence of the Creator in the world.

The following article is an attempt to list and (to begin with) a brief description of searches in this area. Of course, not all arguments can be agreed with, and if someone is interested in this or that evidence, the editors are ready to provide both the author and his opponents with the opportunity for discussion.

16 EVIDENCE OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

1. The first proof, which can be called “existential” (that is, “proof from existence”), is formulated as follows: Why is everything that exists more likely to exist than not?

After all, both creating something and maintaining the existence of anything is much more difficult than having nothing at all. Try, for example, to design a cottage yourself, choose a suitable place for it, build and constantly maintain order in it... Or, for example, for your vegetable garden to really be a vegetable garden, it needs to be regularly dug up, planted, weeded, watered, etc. If this is not done, the garden will immediately become overgrown with weeds, go wild and turn into an ordinary field without any trace of reasonable care.

In other words, the existence of any thing or structure requires a continuous expenditure of energy; when its internal supply is depleted or its influx from the outside stops, the structure collapses. Therefore, the eternal existence of the Universe contradicts, for example, the second law of thermodynamics, according to which all the stars in the Universe should have gone out long ago and even the atoms should have disintegrated if, as atheistic materialists claim, nature had existed forever.

So why does it still exist as BEING, as a beautiful and wonderful Cosmos? Undoubtedly, only because it was created by Someone and has been supported by Him since then.

This Creator is God, about whom Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), who formulated the laws of universal gravitation and motion and discovered differential calculus, said: “He abides forever; present everywhere; It constitutes the duration of time and space.”

2. The second proof is as follows:

Why does everything that exists, is naturally and amazingly ordered, bear the undoubted imprint of a reasonable plan for the structure of the whole? After all, such a plan cannot but presuppose the existence of a Mind that is superhuman in its capabilities, a truly divine Planner (since regularity is a property of the mind)?

Thus, Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), who created the theory that the Sun is at the center of the universe, and the Earth only revolves around it, believed that this model demonstrates the wisdom of God in the universe, for “who else could place this lamp ( Sun) to a different or better position?

When a watchmaker assembles a watch mechanism, he meticulously fits one part to another, takes a spring of precisely calculated length, a certain size of hand, dial, etc. The result is a wonderful mechanism, which, by the very fact of the expediency and calculation of its design, indicates the mind that created it.

But how much more complex, harmonious and intelligent is the structure of the entire Universe surrounding us, this beautiful Cosmos!

Albert Einstein (1879-1955), who formulated the theory of relativity, expressed this idea this way: “The harmony of natural law reveals a Mind so superior to us that in comparison with it all systematic thinking and action of human beings is an extremely insignificant imitation.”

The Universe, as the ancient Greeks said, is a “Cosmos,” that is, a beautifully ordered and harmonious complex system consisting of interconnected parts, each of which is subject to special laws, and all of them as a whole are governed by a combination of general laws, so that the pursuit of any particular goal contributes in an amazing way to achieving the overall goal of the whole.

Therefore, it is impossible to allow all this to be a matter of chance, and not of reasonable Providence, that is, the Providence of God.

3. The “cosmological proof” of the existence of God was developed by the ancients (in particular, Aristotle) and is most often found in the following form: every thing in the world and everything, the entire Universe as a whole has a reason for its existence, but continue this sequence, the chain of reasons until infinity is impossible - somewhere there must be a First Cause, which is no longer determined by any other, otherwise everything turns out to be groundless, “hanging in the air.”

Not only philosophers, but also many naturalists and scientists speak about such a Cause. Thus, the famous Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), who, by the way, developed the world-famous milk purification process, which has since bear his name, often mentioned the “cosmic asymmetrical Force” that created life. He believed that the concept of CAUSE "should be reserved for the single divine impulse which formed this Universe."

It is clear that such an uncaused cause is God: “God is not a man” - He is spiritual (“ideal”, like a thought), that is, he is outside of time and space, therefore he does not arise, but exists forever, being not a cause in the physical meaning of the word , but the Creator of the visible Universe and its laws.

4. The “anthropic principle of the Universe” as proof of the existence of an intelligent plan for the structure of the Universe and God was, probably unwittingly, put forward by modern science, which suddenly found out that life on Earth, the emergence of man and the development of civilization are possible only in the presence and combination of extremely rigid and paradoxically unlikely conditions that seem to be inherent in nature itself: a fixed distance from the Sun (a little closer to it and living organisms would burn, a little further and they would freeze, turning into insensitive blocks of ice); the presence of the Earth's rotation, without which unbearable heat would reign on one half of the planet, while the other would be bound by eternal ice; the existence of a satellite of a certain size that provides a complex system of circulation of water flows; minerals and resources: coal, metals, oil, water, etc., without which a technogenic civilization could not arise and develop, etc.

Moreover, modern scientists have the impression that the entire Universe is located and oriented in such a way that it can be viewed with human eyes! The existing coordination, interconnectedness and interdependence of these factors is such that the possibility of its “accidental” occurrence is completely excluded.

5. The following proof of the creation of the Cosmos by intelligent will was also formulated at the forefront of modern cosmology and physics, which drew attention to the paradoxical nature of the existence of the Universe in the form in which it exists: it turned out that only according to the four main basic physical constants, without which it could not to exist for a long time as a structurally organized whole, the probability of their “random” occurrence and coordination with each other is approximately 10 to the minus 100th power. But there are not four basic constants, but even more...

6. The following “teleological” (from the Greek “telos” - fulfillment, result) proof of the existence of God has been known in general form since antiquity, when Aristotle first noticed the presence of clearly expressed expediencies in the body of some animals and in nature. However, only modern discoveries in biology have indisputably proven the systemic nature of these teleological mechanisms and their necessity for the existence and survival of almost all types of living beings.

A type of activity of these mechanisms is, for example, the “pre-established harmony” of the development of various living organisms, which, even in the embryonic state, seem to know in advance what they will have to face after birth.

And, which Darwinian evolutionary theory is completely unable to explain, studies of fossil organisms have shown that many of them have organs that anticipate external environmental conditions by millennia, organs that are absolutely useless in the current conditions of existence of these animals, but will really be needed by this species in hundreds of generations, when the conditions of existence will radically change!

A legitimate question arises, to which modern evolutionary theory has no answer: how can a body devoid of intelligence have such amazing pre-knowledge of future changes and how can it itself cause the required favorable mutations in itself?!

This amazing fact clearly indicates the presence in the world of a certain and reasonable development program, that is, Providence, which is called the Providence of God.

7. The “transcendental” proof of the existence of the ideal world and God was partly discovered by Kant and can be presented as follows: there is a world outside of space and time - the spiritual world, the world of intellect, thought and free will - which is proven by the presence of thoughts in every person, which can relate to the past and future, that is, “travel” to the past and future, and also be instantly transported to any point in space.

Each of us, turning our consciousness to the source of the origin of our thoughts, can easily notice that they appear as if from somewhere outside, the thought turns out to be a spiritual ray projected from somewhere, which illuminates material existence like a sunbeam - it is of no use to anyone. and you never manage to cover it with your hand, it always ends up on top...

Thus, human thought, supposedly born in the brain, turns out to be simultaneously inside and outside matter - it supposedly arises due to neurophysiological processes in the tissues of the brain, surrounded by the bones of the skull, but, at the same time, fundamentally exists outside of any matter, outside of space and time.

Thanks to this, a person clearly realizes that he has a spiritual nature, which is fundamentally different from the physical world that surrounds him. But it follows from this that this other nature, this Spirit, the manifestation of which is man, also has reason and free will - like man himself.

8. The next proof could probably be called “creationist” - it is based on the fact of the existence in nature of organisms and living systems that, in principle, cannot develop into such a whole from parts by evolutionary means, as Darwinism believes, but can only be created together, as just such an organic whole.

These, for example, may include the interconnected system of the heart, lungs and blood circulation in living beings: it is impossible to imagine that first, let’s say, only blood circulation without a heart appeared, then the heart gradually “attached” to it and began to pump blood, and only after that The lungs have just begun to develop.

9. Proof of the existence of God and the spiritual world from personal experience - most people have encountered in their lives “strange” manifestations of the divine and superhuman: both beneficial, Divine, and malicious, demonic, or, probably most often, both together.

In order not to touch upon the dubious “legends of deep antiquity” for many, I will tell you about an incident that happened to my colleague. He came from a believing family, but at one time he taught “scientific atheism” at a university for many years and, like most Soviet intellectuals, led a far from pious lifestyle. After experiencing several personal tragedies, he realized the depravity of his life and decided to go to the temple.

“When the priest,” he told me, “read a prayer for forgiveness of sins over my head, and I began to get to my feet, some unknown force suddenly began to throw me from side to side so that I could not stand on my feet: parishioners They supported me on both sides, my knees were shaking and, to top it all off, I was suddenly overcome by a strange weakness. So for the first time I felt for myself the demons that are in a sinner,” he concluded.

Quite a lot of similar examples could be given.

10. Proof of the existence of ALL nations and peoples of ideas about God and superhuman powers in one form or another; Although atheistic individuals are found among many nations, there are no “atheistic” nations on Earth.

11. Proof of the faith in God of most of the outstanding geniuses of mankind. For example, the absolute majority of Nobel laureates.

It should also be remembered that all the scientists who contributed with their discoveries to the emergence and development of modern science (Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Boyle, Bacon, Pasteur, Einstein) believed in God.

Thus, the founder of modern chemistry, Robert Boyle (1627-1691), began every day with prayer; Moreover, 2/3 of the income from his estate in Ireland went to helping the poor and supporting the Church, and 1/3 to spreading Christianity and missionary work among the Indians.

Francis Collins, one of the founders of genetics, said: “When we learn something new about the human genome, I always feel a sense of awe that humanity now knows something that only God knew before. I don't believe that scientific research can threaten God in any way. On the contrary, I think God benefits from our curiosity.”

12. Undoubted proof of the existence of God is also the regular appearance in the history of mankind of great saints and religious figures who directly have spiritual revelations from above and thereby testify to His existence.

These are not only prophets such as Moses, Isaiah, Ezekiel, who constantly communicated with God, but also righteous people who illuminated and directed the lives of people at all times with their light.

Perhaps it will be enough to simply remind the reader of such great Russian saints as John of Kronstadt in order to understand that God turns to us just as often now as in distant biblical times - if only we had eyes to see and ears to hear.

God is always with us, it is we who, due to our weakness, either move away or try to return to Him again.

13. Proof by contradiction: the tragic fate of projects (and, often, their own lives and fates) of outstanding atheists. The most striking example here may be the example of the “Lenin-Stalin case” and their followers, who for the first time in history tried to build an atheistic state on a “scientific basis” both on the territory of Russia and other countries of Europe and Asia.

For example, the fate of the best materialist philosopher of the USSR, Evald Vasilyevich Ilyenkov, the son of the famous Soviet writer, laureate of the Stalin Prize for Literature, turned out to be tragic. All his life justifying the atheistic thesis about the “self-development of matter,” which does not need any spiritual foundation for its existence, Evald Vasilyevich could not find moral support anywhere in Soviet atheistic reality, fell into deep depression and committed suicide...

14. The “ethical proof” of the existence of the supersensible world, which comes from the objective existence of morality and ethical laws governing the behavior of human beings, is also widely known.

Research by many philosophers indicates that events and environmental influences can only to a certain extent predetermine the behavior of people and force them to certain actions: no matter how strong the external pressure, a person always has the opportunity to break the cause-and-effect relationship, which irrational nature submits and act as a free being, that is, as a being of another, unearthly world!

To illustrate this, a simple example can be given: why do some people give alms and others do not? It would seem that the latter act quite logically and reasonably - why part with your funds, money, knowing that you will not receive any compensation?!

So what forces the former to give alms, sometimes even in significant amounts? There is nothing in the physical world, in nature, that could explain such “illogical” behavior - this explanation lies outside of this, in the supersensible world, where the great moral ideas of love, goodness and mercy are located.

The famous reasoning of Immanuel Kant, who clearly showed that man in his actions and actions is guided by values that do not belong to the material world, also belongs to this type of evidence of the existence of God.

15. The proof of the existence of God called the “aesthetic argument” has also become widespread, which says: in nature there is an amazing supernatural beauty of the starry sky, sunsets and sunrises, the Northern Lights, harmonious pictures of nature, the perfect structure of the beautiful bodies of living beings, etc. , which seems to be specially intended for the aesthetic pleasure of a rational being - man - because besides him in nature itself there is simply no one to contemplate it.

Robert Boyle, already mentioned, was so in awe of the beauty of nature that he often said: “When I study the book of nature... I am often forced to exclaim with the psalmist: Oh, how manifold are Thy works, O Lord, in Thy wisdom Thou hast made them all!”

16. The proof of the existence of God “from real to absolute perfection” was put forward by Thomas Aquinas: in nature there is a clearly observable gradation of perfection within various types of being, which can only be understood in the presence of an absolutely perfect Being, that is, God.

This proof may seem quite complicated at first, but a simple example will help to understand its essence: if you have a ruler, say, 30 centimeters long, and your colleague has a ruler 50 cm long, if there are rolled meters and other means of measurement, then all this exists only because the dimension of space (its extension in different directions) and the idea of length actually exist.

In the same way, similar examples could be given with measures of weight, time, etc. But in nature there are also more complex types of gradations, among which a unique place belongs to the “ascending ladder” of perfection both in inanimate and living nature, and in human society, as well as among people themselves: there are, for example, crooked and ugly trees, There are ordinary, unremarkable ones, there are “simply” beautiful ones, but there are also unusually beautiful, perfect specimens. And so not only among different types of trees, but also among different breeds of fish, animals, within human races, etc. – more and less perfect individuals can be found everywhere. But these different degrees of perfection in inanimate nature (for example, among stones!), between individual types of objects, living beings, etc., could not exist if for them there was no really existing measure of absolute perfection, which, however, we do not find in the material world, but which cannot but exist, and this perfection is God!
This is the essence of this proof.

Thus, we see that no matter where and how we begin to consider the world around a person, all roads inevitably lead to the One who created and adorned him, Who constantly supports and guides him, and without Whom he could not exist even for a moment - to God.

Many people who hear about God from someone immediately respond, “Prove that He exists!” This is our human nature - we want to touch, see everything... This article was written precisely for such people who doubt that God really exists.

The first thing I would like to answer to those who reject the existence of the Creator is to prove that He does not exist. Statements like “Nobody saw him!”, “You can’t touch him!” they won't give you a ride. Wind, electricity, magnetic field - we also don’t see and can’t touch all of this, but all these things really exist, because we see what they do - they move objects, attract particles, make a light bulb burn. It’s the same with God - we see the changed lives of believers who in the past were at the very bottom of society, we see miracles, deliverance from diseases, and the very fact of the existence of humanity and millions of unique and completely different animals and plants - too action of the Lord.

If you have made a final conclusion for yourself that there is no God, you don’t have to read this article further. Why? It’s just that once and for all, a person who has decided something for himself will ignore all the information that will somehow refute the point of view he has accepted. If there is still room for search in your soul, we invite you to familiarize yourself with the evidence of the existence of God.

Is there a God? Some evidence.

In ALL cultures, from the very beginning of human history to this day, there has been the concept of some kind of higher being or deity. The research of anthropologists sums up the general result - all peoples initially had in their culture a belief in a supreme God - the Creator, which then for some degenerated into a belief in many deities. Can it be that ALL nations are wrong? Atheist peoples have never existed and do not exist now!
The perfectly calculated, very complex and impeccable structure and functioning of our planet and the entire Universe. Just imagine - if the Earth changed its size or proximity to the Sun by just a few kilometers, it would be impossible for the existence of an atmosphere and life on it in principle. If the Moon were a little further or closer from the Earth, the oceans would flood all the land. Is this all just a coincidence? Maybe all this was done by a wise Creator?
The diversity and amazing structure of plants and animals. For example, scientists still cannot understand how a bumblebee flies, whose body is too heavy and whose wings are very small... The created aeromodel with the parameters of this insect does not take off and cannot stay in the air! There are thousands of such examples!
The complexity of the structure of the human brain, which could not arise as a result of chance or evolution. Your brain can process more than a million messages in 1 second, while at the same time making decisions and controlling the body and all the processes taking place in it. Only a mind far superior to human could create such an ideal and complex device!
Everything is not accidental. To assume that such a wise and ideal world could somehow emerge from chaos, without the participation of a higher power, is simply absurd. The Bible says that God is the author of life on Earth and the One who supports this life. From a mathematical point of view, even the combination of amino acids in a human cell is absurd - the famous astronomer Sir Frederick Hoyle compared the opposite assumption to how a tornado could sweep over Boeing spare parts scattered around the market and eventually assemble an airplane!
Archaeological excavations confirm the authenticity of the events and personalities described in the Bible. The Dead Sea Scrolls, numerous manuscripts and the ruins of King David's buildings found in 1993 - all this and much more suggests that the Bible speaks the truth. In addition, it is amazing that none of the books included in the Bible contradicts another, and yet they were written in different countries, by several dozen people, in three different languages, and over 1500 years!

So, we have given just some evidence for the existence of God. What will you do now? Will you just close this page and live the same way as before?

What if God exists?

The Bible tells us of two types of people:

People who have seen many proofs and even miracles of God, but still reject God.
People who want to know God and believe in Him.

The Bible records God's promise to a second group of people:

“And you will seek Me and find Me, if you seek Me with all your heart. And I will be found by you." Old Testament, “Book of the Prophet Jeremiah”, 29:1.

What kind of person will you be?

What does the Bible say about God?

We will not give many quotes here, but the entire attitude of God towards people described in the Bible can be described by the following theses:

God created us and everything around us.

God loves every person, but we are separated from the holy Creator by our sinful nature, given to us from the first people who sinned - Adam and Eve.

God solved the problem of sin by coming into this world in the form of the man Jesus Christ, who became the sin offering for all mankind and conquered death by resurrecting on the third day.

Now everyone who believes in Him and prays the prayer of repentance for sins has the gift of salvation and eternal life.

Why Jesus and not Buddha, Muhammad and others?

Only Jesus Christ said about himself that He is God. All the rest called themselves only teachers and prophets.

Only He gave His sinless life and was able to defeat death by rising from the dead.

Only Christ was able to turn the entire history of mankind upside down so that now we calculate chronology from His birth.

Only He performed the signs and wonders that only God could do.

Learn more about Christ and peace with God by reading other articles on our website.

In this article we will look at what in science is called the Cosmological and Teleological proof of the existence of God.

Convincing yourself that God really exists is actually not difficult at all. To do this, you don’t have to be a scientist, you don’t have to have a special education or know the Bible. You just need to honestly and unbiasedly look at the whole world around you and ask yourself a simple question: Where did all this come from?

How did the entire existing world come into being: man, nature, Earth, the Universe? Could all this have appeared on its own?

Arthur Shavlov,
scientist physicist.

Arthur Schawlow, a famous scientist and Nobel Prize laureate in physics, wrote:

The world is so amazing that I can’t even imagine that it happened by pure chance.

If someone had told me that, for example, my computer appeared on its own, I would not have even taken it seriously. A computer is a complex device that has many people working on its design and production. And although I never saw these people, and I did not see how my computer was made, I can be 100% sure that it did not appear on its own, that there are people who designed it and made it.

However, the world around us is much more complex, and it certainly could not have appeared on its own. Therefore we can be sure that there is someone who created it. And it is Him, the Creator of our world, that we call God. Thus:

The existence of the surrounding world is proof of the existence of God, who created this world.

The legendary scientist and founder of modern chemistry, Robert Boyle, put it in these words:

The immensity, beauty and harmony of the cosmos, the amazing structure of the animal and plant world, and other wonderful natural phenomena - all this rightly prompts a reasonable and unbiased observer to come to the conclusion about the existence of a supreme, powerful, righteous and good Creator.

This idea was also close to another equally famous scientist, Albert Einstein, who wrote:

The deeper I study the world around me, the greater my faith in God becomes.

The world in which we live is so amazingly and complexly structured that even for modern science many natural processes remain an insoluble mystery. Science, for example, still does not know the answer to such a seemingly simple question as: what promotes the growth of teeth in a child. Scientists only have different theories and assumptions on this matter, but so far the mechanism of tooth growth is not fully understood. Other examples of the amazing structure of our world are described in scientific documentaries in the section.

The fact that our entire so complex and amazing world was created by Someone - you don’t even have to believe in it, it’s just an obvious fact. But to believe that all this happened by itself, by accident, this really requires a very great faith, which would be instilled in a person all his life from childhood. And such a belief is actually instilled with the help of the so-called theory of evolution.

Despite the fact that, according to many famous scientists, the theory of evolution contradicts the fundamental laws of physics (read more about this in the article), it nevertheless continues to have a huge influence on people in modern society. According to recent studies conducted by the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion, 35% of respondents said they believe in the theory of evolution.

Thus, approximately a third of society was influenced by this widely propagated idea and believed that everything appeared on its own and evolved into highly developed forms of life on its own. But every thinking person understands perfectly well that nothing appears by itself. Our wonderful world was created by Someone. Therefore, as Robert Millikan, also a Nobel Prize winner in physics, said:

I have never met a thinking person who did not believe in God.

about God:

Culture

Both believers and atheists are constantly waiting for clear evidence that will confirm or refute existence of God.

Below is a list of theories and studies carried out by scientists from various fields who have worked to prove the existence of God, Heaven and Hell.

Do they provide real facts or are they still conjecturing many things? You decide!

1. The scientist who “dug” the road to hell in Siberia and recorded the cries of damned souls (1989)

What actually happened:

The Soviet Union drilled a deep hole in the ground - the Kola Superdeep Well (12,262 meters). The well is located on the Kola Peninsula. After its completion, quite interesting geological anomalies were discovered, but as it turned out, there was nothing unusual, much less supernatural, about them.

What the legend says:

According to legend, in 1989, a group of Russian scientists working under the direction of Dr. Azakov was drilling a hole almost 15 kilometers deep in an unnamed location in Siberia when they came across a bottomless cavity.

Intrigued by the unexpected find, they lowered a heat-resistant microphone into the hole along with other sensory equipment. According to experts, they were able to record and then hear the anguished screams of desperate people.

The second surprise was the incredibly high temperature they discovered in the center of the Earth (more than 1000 degrees Celsius). As a result, they came to the conclusion that they had opened the road to hell.

The story was soon picked up by numerous American and European media outlets, and audio files of the alleged sufferers filled the entire Internet. Immediately, Trinity Broadcasting Network (TNB) began discussing the audio track on all of their gospel channels, saying it was definitive evidence that hell exists.

Norwegian teacher Age Rendalen heard the TNB story during a visit to the United States. Feeling a terrible disgust for mass gullibility, he decided to “thicken the colors” of the fairy tale told by the channels.

Rendalen wrote online that he initially did not believe in this tale, but upon returning to Norway, he supposedly read the "factual" report on the story. According to Rendalen, not only were the voices of the damned souls clearly audible on the recording, but also the ghosts of bats were flying out of the hole, leaving an indelible mark on the Russian sky.

To perpetuate his fiction, Rendalen deliberately mistranslated a regular Norwegian article about a local structure and provided it, as well as TNB's English "translation".

Rendalen included in the article his real data, phone number and address, and also left the contact information of one pastor he knew who agreed play along him in case someone wants to check and call to ask about everything personally.

Unfortunately, TNB published the story without contact information for Rendalen and the California pastor, and the story itself was made up " Welcome to hell and hoax" began to be played on radio, television and published in all newspapers.

In fact, the reality is that Soviet scientists essentially drilled a hole, almost 15 km deep, in the ultra-deep Kola well, located not in Siberia, but on the Kola Peninsula, which borders Norway and Finland.

After completion of the well, some interesting geological anomalies were discovered, but they did not indicate any supernatural encounters. The temperature at depth reached 180 degrees Celsius, so further drilling was stopped due to high cost of the procedure.

As it later turned out, the recording used, supposedly the voices of tortured souls, was just a remix of part of the soundtrack to the 1972 film "Baron's Blood" with added effects.

The best part is that today you can buy a copy of The Sounds of Hell for $12.99.

Does God exist?

2) Neurologist who claimed that Heaven exists after spending a week in a coma (2008)

In 2008, Eben Alexander III suffered a very serious, week-long coma caused by meningitis infection. Brain scans showed that the entire cortex, which surrounds the brain in the area responsible for consciousness, thinking, memory and understanding, was not functioning.

Doctors gave him very little chance and told his family that even if Eben survived, he would likely remain brain damaged for the rest of his life. Despite all the difficulties endured, Eben woke up exactly a week later.

While in a deep coma, the brain was so severely damaged that only its most primitive areas worked. After waking up, the man claimed that he experienced something extraordinary: he traveled to heaven.

In his autobiographical book, Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife, he talks about how left his body and suffered clinical death.

Alexander claims that after death, an entire eternity of perfect splendor awaits us, complete with angels, clouds, and deceased relatives.

By July 3, 2013, the book had been on the New York Times bestseller list for 35 weeks.

In a wide-ranging investigation into the history of neurologist Alexander, based on his medical background, Esquire magazine reported in its August 2013 issue that before the book's publication, the neurologist was suspended from medical practice due to negligence, as well as due to his participation in at least two procedures to cover up medical errors.

The magazine's specialists also talked about what they found discrepancies in the book of Alexander. Among the inconsistencies, in particular, what stands out is that Alexander writes that he “fell into a coma as a result of a severe form of bacterial meningitis, while brain activity was suspended.”

At the same time, the doctor who observed him during the coma states that the coma was medically induced, and the patient was partially conscious, but was accompanied by hallucinations.

Alexander's book and the advertising campaign in support of it were criticized by scientists, including neuroscientist Sam Harris, who called Alexander's work "disturbingly unscientific" and stressed that the evidence presented by the author is not only insufficient, it also suggests that the author knows little about how the brain works.

In November 2012, Alexander responded to critics by releasing a second article in which he recounted the words of the doctors who performed all the brain tests on him. “Nothing was done that would impair any of the functions, including vision, hearing, emotions, memory, language or logic.”

Truth or lie? Everyone decides for themselves.

Evidence for the Existence of God

3) Chemistry student who demonstrated that heaven and hell exist

According to urban legend, the following story began with a response that was received from a University of Washington chemistry student.

And here is the question itself: Is hell an ectothermic place (that is, it gives off heat) or an endothermic place (that is, it absorbs heat)?

Most students answered the question using Boyle's law (a gas cools when it expands and heats up when it contracts).

However, one of the students approached the answer like this:

First, we must understand How much does the mass of Hell change over time?. That is, we must have an idea of at what speed souls move to Hell and at what speed they leave it.

I think it's quite reasonable to assume that if the soul has already fallen into Hell, then it is unlikely to leave it. As for exactly how many souls go to Hell, it is worth looking at the various religions that exist in the world today.

Most of them claim that if you do not profess this particular religion, then you will undoubtedly go to Hell. Since there are so many religions today, we can confidently say that all souls go to Hell.

Considering the birth and death rates throughout the world, it can be assumed that the number of souls in Hell is growing exponentially(that is, the value increases in direct proportion to the value of the value itself).

Now we are looking at the rate of change in the volume of Hell, because Boyle's law states that in order to maintain the same temperature and pressure in Hell, the volume must expand in direct proportion to the addition of souls. In this case, two scenarios are possible.

1. If Hell expands more slowly than the number of souls living there grows, then the temperature and pressure there will increase disproportionately, so the day will come when Hell will “fall apart.”

2. If Hell increases in size at a rate greater than the volume of incoming souls, then the temperature and pressure will drop and Hell will freeze over.

So where is the truth?

If we take into account the postulate that I heard from my colleague Teresa in my first year ("Hell will freeze over if I sleep with you") and also take into account that I spent last night with her, then of the points I proposed, the second is true.

So I'm sure that hell has already frozen over.

The consequence of this theory is the fact that since Hell has already frozen over, it means that no more souls go there, and, therefore, only Heaven remains, which proves the existence of a divine being. This explains why Teresa screamed for a long time last night: " Oh my God!"

For obvious reasons, the student received the highest grade.

4) Professor of Medicine Who Claimed to Find a Sculpture of God (1725)

In 1725, Professor Adam Beringer, dean of the faculty of medicine at the University of Würzburg, found many carved in limestone figurines of lizards, frogs, spiders, birds with the faces of fish, the sun and stars.

Some of them were signed, for example, the Hebrew name of God in Latin, Arabic and Hebrew. These figures carved in stone, in his opinion, were created by God himself when he experimented with types of life, planning the universe.

Behringer also, along with his main explanation, suggested several possible other interpretations, among which was the version about the imprints of dead animals (fossils). However, most of them, according to the professor, were " capricious thoughts of God."

He also considered the version that these drawings belonged to prehistoric pagans, but it would be more correct to exclude this option, because the pagans did not know the name of God.

In fact he became a victim of deception, committed by his fellow ex-Jesuits Ignatz Roderick, professor of geography and mathematics, and Johann Georg von Eckhart, privy councilor and librarian.

Having got to the bottom of the truth, Beringer sued the deceivers, then a scandal followed, after which all three have lost their authority.

Some of the fossil animals discovered by Behringer then are kept today in the Oxford University Museum.

5) Pascal's Wager: Does God exist or not? You must decide (17th century)

Pascal's Wager is a dogma in apologetic philosophy that was developed by the 17th century French mathematician, physicist and philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623 – 1622).

Dogma states that Throughout our lives, humanity has debated the existence of God.

If God exists, then given the infinite gain or loss associated with believing in God or not believing in God, a reasonable person should live as if God exists, seek him, and believe.

If God does not actually exist, then such a person will only have a finite loss (of some pleasure, luxury, etc.).

The following logic is used in philosophy:

1. God either exists or He does not;

2. In the game we all play, it will always come up heads or tails;

3. For obvious reasons, you are unable to prove any of the above statements;

4. You must choose something for yourself (this is not optional);

5. Let's weigh all the benefits and losses if we assume that there is a God. Let's evaluate these two choices. If you win, you get everything, if you lose, you lose nothing.

Historically, Pascal's Wager was groundbreaking because it outlined new areas of study in probability theory, marking the first formal use of decision theory, as well as the emergence of expected topics in future philosophy such as existentialism, pragmatism, and voluntarism.

6) Euler's formula to explain the existence of God (18th century)

Leonhard Euler (1707 – 1783) was one of the first Swiss mathematicians and physicists to make important discoveries in areas such as infinitesimal calculus and graph theory.

Euler also created much of modern mathematical terminology and notation in calculus, such as the concept of a mathematical function. He is known for his work in mechanics, fluid dynamics, optics and astronomy. He lived most of his life in St. Petersburg and Berlin.

Much of what is known about Euler's religious beliefs can be inferred from his letters to a German princess, as well as from his early works, which show that he was a devout Christian who believed that the Bible was written under divine inspiration.

Moreover, he argued for the divine inspiration of Scripture.

There is a famous legend inspired by Euler's arguments. The French philosopher Denis Diderot, at the invitation of Catherine the Great, paid a visit to Russia. However, the empress was extremely alarmed that the arguments of the atheist philosopher could affect her closest subjects.

So, Euler was asked to confront a clever Frenchman. Diderot was informed that the mathematician had developed a formula proving the existence of God, and he agreed to study its proof.

When the time came for Euler to talk about his formula, he said: " Sir, (a+b) to the nth power divided by n = x, therefore God exists. Now you!"

Diderot, for whom, as history claims, mathematics was akin to Chinese literacy, was left dumbfounded and immediately left the meeting place. Being in an extremely embarrassed position, he asked the empress let him leave the country, to which the latter kindly agreed.

Euler was depicted on the sixth series of Swiss 10-franc banknotes, as well as on numerous Swiss, German and Russian postage stamps. An asteroid that fell to Earth in 2002 was also named after him.

In his honor, the Lutheran Church even created a holiday, which is celebrated on May 24. He was a very devout Christian who believed in the inerrancy of the Bible, wrote apologetics, and actively opposed the prominent atheists of his time.

7) Mathematician who developed the God Theorem (1931)

Kurt Friedrich Gödel was an Austrian and later American logician, mathematician and philosopher. It is believed that he, along with Aristotle and Frege, was one of the most powerful logicians in the history of mankind.

This man made a huge contribution to the formation of scientific and philosophical thinking in the 20th century. Gödel published his two incompleteness theorems in 1931, when he was 25 years old and had just received his doctorate from the University of Vienna.

The first theorem states that any self-consistent system force is sufficient to describe the arithmetic of natural numbers (for example, arithmetic Peano), however, there are true propositions about natural numbers that cannot be proven using axioms.

To prove this theorem, Gödel developed a technique known today as Gödel numbering, which encodes formal expressions as natural numbers.

He also showed that neither the axiom of choice nor the continuum hypothesis can be falsified by the accepted axioms of set theory by relying on the axioms being consistent. Previous results allowed mathematicians to talk about the axiom of choice in their proofs.

He also made important contributions to proof theory by clarifying the connection between classical, intuitionistic and modal logic.

When Gödel died in 1978, he left behind an interesting theory based on the principles of modal logic (a type of formal logic that, in a narrow sense, involves the use of the words "necessarily" and "possibly").

The theorem itself states that God, or the supreme being, is that greater than which it is impossible to understand anything. That is, if a person has proven and understood that God exists, he can do anything.

God exists in understanding. If God exists in understanding, we can imagine that He exists in reality. Therefore, God must exist.

Heaven, earth, hell

8) A scientist who says there is no conflict between science and religion (2007)

During an interview with CNN in April 2007, Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project, reaffirmed the information that embedded DNA evidence proves the existence of God.

According to the researcher, he gathered a consortium of scientists to read 3100000000 letters of the human genome. As a believer, Dr. Collins sees the DNA information in the molecules of all living things as a divine language, and the elegance and complexity of this language is a reflection of God's plan.

However, he did not always hold this opinion. When Collins was a graduate student in physical chemistry in 1970, his atheistic thinking found no reason to postulate the existence of any truths that deviated from the laws of mathematics, physics and chemistry.

He then entered medical school and came face to face with the problem of life and death among his patients. One of the patients asked him: " What do you believe, doctor?" From then on, he began searching for answers.

Dr. Collins admitted that the science he loved so much was powerless to answer questions such as: “What is the meaning of life?”, “Why am I here?”, “Why does mathematics work this way and not otherwise?”, “If the Universe had a beginning, then who created it?”, “Why are the physical constants in the Universe so subtle are determined to allow the possibility of the emergence of complex forms of life?”, “Why do people have a sense of morality?”, “What happens to us after death?”.