[TrashMan]

What part of the word "belief" do you have trouble understanding here Kaj?

I believe in a truthful God because I do. Period. Not only because there Bible sez so, but because that the image of God that makes most sense to me.

 

[karajorma]

I have no trouble with the word belief. My point was that it's hilarious that you apply God wanting free will to everything except the bible. There's no way free will could have cocked that up even though free will is the explanation for everything else.

God does act, He works through people. An example is sort of like when you need money because you're in debt, and praying to God for a solution. Next thing you know there's a good job opening that you get hired for which lets you get the money to pay off your debt. The working through people part of this would be say the boss of the job fired the really crappy dude who use to fill the position now making it open for you. This is normal circumstance of the job market that there will be openings eventually so you can get hired and make money. On the coincidence part it ended up being the exact solution you were praying about.

Now apply that to God wanting to correct the bible over inaccuracies that had appeared in the OT. Instead of correcting it he sent Jesus down to do it. Jesus then preaches the word the way God wants it. Jesus ascends back to heaven. The Gospels are written, getting it mostly correct. Paul comes along and buggers it all up by then preaching a bunch of stuff counter to Jesus' message. God thinks "Well the message is there, it's up to people to notice it and disregard the nonsense. I'll act through people once in a while to try to remind them that Jesus is the stuff I wanted listened to, not Paul"

The bible tells you plenty of what God wants, is like, and to a degree thinks. Of course the bible isn't going to say everything about God.

Again assuming that the bible is 100% correct. Which I'd already said was something I was taking as suspect in the first part of my argument.

Besides, make up your mind. Either you know what God wants, is like and to a degree thinks or he is utterly unknowable to the human mind. You're trying to argue both.

[Ace]

What part of the word "belief" do you have trouble understanding here Kaj?

I believe in a truthful God because I do. Period. Not only because there Bible sez so, but because that the image of God that makes most sense to me.

 

Now repeat that statement without using circuitious logic and... you'll be sainted for doing the impossible 

[Polpolion]

I forgot this thread was still alive, so I posted this somewhere else:

I learned something funny in Epistemology today. Empiricists think that something is only real if you can experience it, and rationalists think that something is real even if no one can experience it.

--Empiricism essentially makes a lot of meta-physics meaningless, including the debate for an existence of God, because God as I've been taught hasn't ever been experienced. They use inductive reasoning a lot.

--Rationalists don't need an experience for something to be true; they use logic to deduce that something is real.

Both are mutually exclusive and all encompassing my reading said, so you have to be one of them (even if you don't know it), and you can't be both.  And so given that, I have come to these conclusions about God:

A) He exists. (Rational argument only)
     1) It will always be impossible for human people to know that he exists with any significant amount of certainty. Always. Given Philosophy, this is an unacceptable conclusion (I suppose that doesn't necessarily mean incorrect, though).
        -OR-
     2) God exists and there is a logical, deductive way to prove it (that doesn't mean simple or easy, though).

-OR-

B) God doesn't exist. He never has and he never will. (Rational and Empirical argument)

This is why I thought that Trashman and Karajorma were always debating about God, Karajorma being an Empiricist and Trashman being a Rationalist. But I seem to recall Trashman openly denying the validity of logic, which is essential for a rationalist's proofs. So it would seem that it is impossible for Trashman to ever really "know" that God exists until after he dies. Karajorma, on the other hand, from what I've seen of his method of thinking, knows that God does not exist.

On an unrelated note, I believe that tomorrow I will become a multi-billionaire, assuming that I become a multi-billionaire tomorrow.

And I believe that on Pluto, there is a gigantic apple pie, just for the hell of it.

[Mongoose]

So...what I'm getting from that is that TrashMan doesn't actually exist?

[Polpolion]

So...what I'm getting from that is that TrashMan doesn't actually exist?

I figured that he just wasn't very good rationalist.

[TrashMan]

I learned something funny in Epistemology today. Empiricists think that something is only real if you can experience it, and rationalists think that something is real even if no one can experience it.

--Empiricism essentially makes a lot of meta-physics meaningless, including the debate for an existence of God, because God as I've been taught hasn't ever been experienced. They use inductive reasoning a lot.

--Rationalists don't need an experience for something to be true; they use logic to deduce that something is real.

Both are mutually exclusive and all encompassing my reading said, so you have to be one of them (even if you don't know it), and you can't be both.  And so given that, I have come to these conclusions about God:

A) He exists. (Rational argument only)
     1) It will always be impossible for human people to know that he exists with any significant amount of certainty. Always. Given Philosophy, this is an unacceptable conclusion (I suppose that doesn't necessarily mean incorrect, though).
        -OR-
     2) God exists and there is a logical, deductive way to prove it (that doesn't mean simple or easy, though).

-OR-

B) God doesn't exist. He never has and he never will. (Rational and Empirical argument)

This is why I thought that Trashman and Karajorma were always debating about God, Karajorma being an Empiricist and Trashman being a Rationalist. But I seem to recall Trashman openly denying the validity of logic, which is essential for a rationalist's proofs. So it would seem that it is impossible for Trashman to ever really "know" that God exists until after he dies. Karajorma, on the other hand, from what I've seen of his method of thinking, knows that God does not exist.

You fail. I don't deny logic - what I do deny is the belief that it's the be-all and end-all of everything. Logic is a tool, a personal tool further tweaked by each individual. It's far from perfect and super-accurate, but it does it's job (more or less).

Besides, I know God exists.

[Jeff Vader]

I know that pi is exactly 3.

[terran_emperor]

Douglas Adams already proved the non-existace of god.

[TrashMan]

And modern science proved you don't exist. There never was a emperor of all earth! You are a lie! A LIE I TELL YOU! It's a all a CIA-alien coverup!

[karajorma]

This is why I thought that Trashman and Karajorma were always debating about God, Karajorma being an Empiricist and Trashman being a Rationalist. But I seem to recall Trashman openly denying the validity of logic, which is essential for a rationalist's proofs. So it would seem that it is impossible for Trashman to ever really "know" that God exists until after he dies. Karajorma, on the other hand, from what I've seen of his method of thinking, knows that God does not exist.

Sorry but you fail on both counts.

I'm not 100% certain I buy your argument but it certainly makes more sense if you have got the sides mixed up.

1) You've noted yourself that Trashman has denied the validity of logic.
2) Religious people for the most part have experienced God. They don't arrive at the belief he exists via logic. They attempt to construct logical arguments for his existance based on the cast iron certainty they already have that he exists. Trashman himself said that he knows God exists. He's experienced him. That experience gives him faith. When a religious person begins to doubt the validity of that experience that's when they have a crisis of faith.
3) I don't know that God doesn't exist. I don't know that the universe has no meaning. Both of those could actually be true. But I've not seen one jot of evidence for either being true. And given that logic demands that the simpler of two explanations is likely to be correct I'd be abandoning logic to assume God existed with no data to confirm or deny it. (cue a whole big argument on how God is actually the simpler answer )
4) I've got no problem with people believing that there is a meaning to life or that there is a God. As far as I'm concerned that's a philosophical point that I disagree with them upon. What I dislike is attempting to claim that logic can prove that there MUST be a God cause they universe couldn't have existed without one. Cause that is flawed logic.

[WeatherOp]

I now coinsider it my moral duty to kill you.

You got everything mixed up. What the hell did they teach you anyway?
First, Hell is a foreign concept that we have no idea what it's actually like. It's described like bruning in the lake of fire, but that's just colorfull description. You can't experience Hell while alive, so no human can really describe it.
Secondly, you dont' ahev to be Crhistian to go to heaven.  I don't know where you got that from.

A wise man once observed to me about arguments such as yours that "Sense makes stupid be knowing."

Hell is eternal torment. That's pretty concrete. And no one, ever, for any reason, deserves eternal torment. I don't care if that means just having to listen to someone rapidly clicking a pen for millenia or the lake of fire. It's not moral to eternally punish someone in any fashion.

As for the second point, this a subject of contention within Christian philosophy itself. However there are enough people who lived and died in, say, New Guniea before Europeans showed up whose religions included cannablistic activities or other things that are perfectly capable of earning you a spot in eternal damnation. So it really doesn't matter whether all non-Christians do or do not go to hell, plenty of people never even had a chance to reform, and this is an omnipotent deity who could have given it to them.

Thus why if God exists, He must be dealt with. Harshly.

James 4:17?

[Polpolion]

This is why I thought that Trashman and Karajorma were always debating about God, Karajorma being an Empiricist and Trashman being a Rationalist. But I seem to recall Trashman openly denying the validity of logic, which is essential for a rationalist's proofs. So it would seem that it is impossible for Trashman to ever really "know" that God exists until after he dies. Karajorma, on the other hand, from what I've seen of his method of thinking, knows that God does not exist.

Sorry but you fail on both counts.

I'm not 100% certain I buy your argument but it certainly makes more sense if you have got the sides mixed up.

1) You've noted yourself that Trashman has denied the validity of logic.
2) Religious people for the most part have experienced God. They don't arrive at the belief he exists via logic. They attempt to construct logical arguments for his existance based on the cast iron certainty they already have that he exists. Trashman himself said that he knows God exists. He's experienced him. That experience gives him faith. When a religious person begins to doubt the validity of that experience that's when they have a crisis of faith.
3) I don't know that God doesn't exist. I don't know that the universe has no meaning. Both of those could actually be true. But I've not seen one jot of evidence for either being true. And given that logic demands that the simpler of two explanations is likely to be correct I'd be abandoning logic to assume God existed with no data to confirm or deny it. (cue a whole big argument on how God is actually the simpler answer )
4) I've got no problem with people believing that there is a meaning to life or that there is a God. As far as I'm concerned that's a philosophical point that I disagree with them upon. What I dislike is attempting to claim that logic can prove that there MUST be a God cause they universe couldn't have existed without one. Cause that is flawed logic.

2) Religious people have physically experienced God. This does not mean that there is a non-physical God, depending on how you define him.
3) Wasn't it you that cited that Strong Atheism page? That's pretty much the main reason why I made the assumption that I did. If that was just an example you were using at the time and didn't necessarily reflect your own viewpoints; then my bad. I mis-remembered. :/
4) Wait, so do you dislike them claiming that there must be a God because their premise was that the universe couldn't exist without one, or was that just an example?

You fail. I don't deny logic - what I do deny is the belief that it's the be-all and end-all of everything. Logic is a tool, a personal tool further tweaked by each individual. It's far from perfect and super-accurate, but it does it's job (more or less).

Besides, I know God exists.

I could look up the exact posts where you deny it, and it pretty much contradicts what you said here, but I'm sure that everyone that cares about this discussion can remember what I'm talking about, and if they can't, I'll look them up for them. By the way, I'm curious: what exactly do you think logic's job is?

And if you understood Epistemology at all to most any degree, assuming your definition of God correlates to most people's, you don't actually "know" with 100% certainty that God exists. And "knowing" isn't the same as "believing with 100% certainty" or "wanting to know".

EDIT: Come to think of it, I did phrase a lot of my original post rather poorly. And I'll probably think the same of this post in a few hours.

[karajorma]

2) Religious people have physically experienced God. This does not mean that there is a non-physical God, depending on how you define him.

I agree. Just because a religious person claims to have physically felt God's presence doesn't mean that there actually was one. My point was that they believe in the non-physical god not due to logic but because they believe that they have experiences that could only happen if one existed.

3) Wasn't it you that cited that Strong Atheism page? That's pretty much the main reason why I made the assumption that I did. If that was just an example you were using at the time and didn't necessarily reflect your own viewpoints; then my bad. I mis-remembered. :/

I did but I believe I also pointed out that by the definition I was more of a weak atheist.

4) Wait, so do you dislike them claiming that there must be a God because their premise was that the universe couldn't exist without one, or was that just an example?

I dislike anyone saying that there must have been a god for the Big Bang to happen, for abiogenesis to occur, for evolution of complex structures (like the eye, cell or DNA) or to explain the reason why plain apes developed intelligence.

If on the other hand someone says that there must be a God for the universe to have meaning then I disagree with them but I don't dislike them saying it.

In the case of the first one science can answer those questions to a good degree and can fill in enough details to make a claim that God did the rest seem rather like an attempt to shoehorn God in somewhere. People have been doing that for as long as there have been people (God makes the sun rise in the mornings, God makes it rain) and it seems silly that whenever there is anything unexplained people are still doing it. What's worse though is when it has been explained and people insist on holding onto the "God did it" claim. It's as silly and insulting to those of us who do understand it as continuing to claim that God makes the sun rise every morning and insisting that all the astrophysicists have gotten it wrong.

 The second case however is a philosophical difference. If someone claims to know what that meaning is then I'll probably argue with that too but the difference is that it would be a philosophical argument rather than a science vs made up nonsense argument.

[Scotty]

I dislike anyone saying that there must have been a god for the Big Bang to happen, for abiogenesis to occur, for evolution of complex structures (like the eye, cell or DNA) or to explain the reason why plain apes developed intelligence.

I agree with the two in bold.  Abiogenesis cannot occur, that is proven definitively enough.  Plain apes do not develop intelligence.  Now adays, we just call them apes.  The intelligent apes I assume  you are referring to are humans, and therefore, distinctly different.

In the case of the first one science can answer those questions to a good degree and can fill in enough details to make a claim that God did the rest seem rather like an attempt to shoehorn God in somewhere.

Why is it so unthinkable that God is the answer to a good degree and science is just the attempt to shoehorn what we assume we know in there?  The Big-Bang theory and the theory of evolution are just that, theories.  They have an observational scientific base going for them, of course, but remember too that abiogenesis was widely accepted because there was an observational aspect to it.  The same may or may not be true for evolution or the big bang.  They could be just as wrong.

What's worse though is when it has been explained and people insist on holding onto the "God did it" claim. It's as silly and insulting to those of us who do understand it as continuing to claim that God makes the sun rise every morning and insisting that all the astrophysicists have gotten it wrong.

Yes, it is.  It's as silly and insulting to those of us who do understand that God made the sun, and therefore, has made it "rise" every morning as continuing to claim that all the religious people have gotten it wrong.  Of course "rise" is just a spacially relative term in this case, but you get my point.  "God did it" because He set in motion the things that astrophysicists try so hard to explain.

a philosophical argument rather than a science vs made up nonsense argument.

I could counter that by saying that all of Darwin's books are made up nonsense.  It doesn't make it true. 

EDIT:  I apologize, I just saw your actual meaning of that sentence.

Did you know, in fact, that Darwin didn't actually advocate "evolution?"  He merely observed what he saw of natural selection in the Galapagos and wrote a book on it.  It has been more modern sceintists that have twisted his observations into the theory we have today.

[Herra Tohtori]

I dislike anyone saying that there must have been a god for the Big Bang to happen, for abiogenesis to occur, for evolution of complex structures (like the eye, cell or DNA) or to explain the reason why plain apes developed intelligence.

I agree with the two in bold.  Abiogenesis cannot occur, that is proven definitively enough.  Plain apes do not develop intelligence.  Now adays, we just call them apes.  The intelligent apes I assume  you are referring to are humans, and therefore, distinctly different.

Incorrect. Science doesn't disprove things. It can't disprove things. It is not possible to disprove something like abiogenesis, which is a hypothesis of life's origins in the course of millions or billions of years. Scientific method relies on proving hypotheses with experimentation, after which the hypothesis and the related means of predicting the outcome of experiments becomes a theory.

Same applies to God - science can't disprove him either.

Logical method can, though - you just need to ask yourself which is bigger, universe (by definition "everything that is") or God?

If God exists, he is by definition part of the universe which contains "everything there is". That means that if God is an individual entity in the Universe, logically it follows that the universe itself is mightier, bigger and awesomer than God, which kinda puts this God being on the same line with us, a sentient being in the universe.

Also, I don't really understand what you mean be "plain apes do not develope intelligence". When put into conditions where intelligence would be the primary selective pressure - whether naturally or by selective breeding - it's pretty certain that the intelligence of the test population would increase by time. However if other things like anatomical requirements for bigger brain would not be addressed (more dangerous childbirth and infancy, increased need for food etc. etc.) it would obviously at some point reach a limit where the appearance of the species would need to change for intelligence to grow further, and at some point you wouldn't be able to call them the same species any more - but the question is without much relevance because the required amount of generations for this kind of evolution is a lot longer than any research could conceivably last and thus we need to jsut use the nature as our laboratory and look at what kind of evolution is visible on our lifetime.

Such as rat populations developing resistance to strychnine. Or seagull populating spreading around the shores of Arctic Sea and when they met the original populations after going around the globe, the "new" and "old" seagull populations had deviated far enough that they didn't procreate between populations any more, because they didn't recognize each other to be of the same species any more. Whether that was due to changes in appearance or mating behaviour doesn't really matter; it is possible that at that point the two species (or sub-species) could have produced fertile offspring but the fact remains they didn't, which would have eventually led to the separation of the species into two.

In the case of the first one science can answer those questions to a good degree and can fill in enough details to make a claim that God did the rest seem rather like an attempt to shoehorn God in somewhere.

Why is it so unthinkable that God is the answer to a good degree and science is just the attempt to shoehorn what we assume we know in there?  The Big-Bang theory and the theory of evolution are just that, theories.  They have an observational scientific base going for them, of course, but remember too that abiogenesis was widely accepted because there was an observational aspect to it.  The same may or may not be true for evolution or the big bang.  They could be just as wrong.

Specifics first:

The big bang hypothesis is supported by the observations of expanding universe, and since the big bang hypothesis accurately offers an explanation to the observations, it can be called a theory and in addition it can be considered as the most accurate theory at present - which in science means that it is the most likely explanation aka probable truth.

Abiogenesis is a bit trickier thing. It hasn't been proven to happen experimentally due to obvious problems in replication of conditions and the timeframe for the expected emergence of life, which means it is a hypothesis rather than theory, but the thing that makes it more acceptable than God-answer in science is that it is definitely not inconceivable by other very well documented theories and observations - mainly physics, chemistry and observations of basic chemicals of life in various places in the universe. Abiogenesis is, in a way, an extension of chemical evolution. In favourable conditions, it is not inconceivable to think that some nucleotides or other molecules could form a self-replicating molecule, and when there's as much time as there has been in the universe (refer to the Big Bang theory, 13.7 billion years), then the probability of such an event happening at some point increases drastically.

Evolution on the other hand is a very well documented and proven accurate theory of the developement of species. Aside from fossil records, there's the huge amount of information used in genetic engineering and indeed even selective breeding that pretty much proves that it is indeed the genotype that defines the fenotype, and with sufficient change in the fenotype the species can evolve into different species (unable to produce fertile offspring).

Then the general answer. Goddidit is a lot less informative answer to things than some more in-depth answers. On a fundamental level, though, I personally find it easiest to simply call Universe a God without personality or overruling consciousness, and in that sense "goddidit" is as good an answer to things as saying that this is how things just happen in the universe.

Of course, considering Universe to be a blind god makes a lot more sense to me than a personal god for the aforementioned reasons (personal God < Universe).

What's worse though is when it has been explained and people insist on holding onto the "God did it" claim. It's as silly and insulting to those of us who do understand it as continuing to claim that God makes the sun rise every morning and insisting that all the astrophysicists have gotten it wrong.

Yes, it is.  It's as silly and insulting to those of us who do understand that God made the sun, and therefore, has made it "rise" every morning as continuing to claim that all the religious people have gotten it wrong.  Of course "rise" is just a spacially relative term in this case, but you get my point.  "God did it" because He set in motion the things that astrophysicists try so hard to explain.

And of course there is the problem with "goddidit" that it hides everything else behind the question - where did God come from?

To me it all boils down to one thing. Which is more likely to emerge from nothingness - an all-powerful (with infinite powers) consciousness, or a finite universe without any intelligence of it's own, just a bunch of mechanics?

Not only that but there are no infinities in science, so it is unlikely that God would be infinitely powerful, even should he exist...*


*Smilie is there to announce that I realize how oxymoronic this sentence is...

[DarthWang]

Deist, so pointless question
 

[karajorma]

Plain apes do not develop intelligence.  Now adays, we just call them apes.  The intelligent apes I assume  you are referring to are humans, and therefore, distinctly different.

*facepalm*

There are a bunch of people who like to claim that evolution is true but that God must have helped with the evolution of intelligence.  It's about as nonsensical as most of the other arguments against evolution.

Why is it so unthinkable that God is the answer to a good degree and science is just the attempt to shoehorn what we assume we know in there?

Cause if he is then he's the kind of God who deliberately buries dinosaur skeletons in order to test people's faith. Bill Hicks sums up my objection to that far better than I ever could.

The Big-Bang theory and the theory of evolution are just that, theories. 

Like the theory of gravitation then.

I'd suggest you actually read up a little on the subject before you start making comments like this one because they reveal a profound lack of knowledge about the subject. A comment like this one is like saying to a Christian "but Christians don't believe in only one god cause Buddha said...."

Anybody who knows anything about Christianity knows that Buddha is not part of it and thus wouldn't make a comment as deeply stupid as that. Similarly anyone who has the slightest bit of knowledge about science knows that there is nothing higher than theory. There is no level of proof above that. Gravity is a theory, the structure of the atom is a theory, the principles your PC works on is a theory.

By making that comment you reveal you actually know nothing at all about science or how it works. So quite why you expect you can tell people that they are wrong is beyond me.

They have an observational scientific base going for them, of course, but remember too that abiogenesis was widely accepted because there was an observational aspect to it. The same may or may not be true for evolution or the big bang.  They could be just as wrong.

What? Abiogenesis is still widely accepted. You seem to believe it's been proved wrong. Worse you claim it's been proved wrong by the greater scientific community and not just the sort of crackpots who claim that they can scientifically prove that Noah's flood created dinosaur fossils.

Either you phrased that very badly or you don't actually know what abiogenesis is. I'll give you a chance to rephrase in case you do.

It's as silly and insulting to those of us who do understand that God made the sun, and therefore, has made it "rise" every morning as continuing to claim that all the religious people have gotten it wrong.  Of course "rise" is just a spacially relative term in this case, but you get my point.  "God did it" because He set in motion the things that astrophysicists try so hard to explain.

If you want to claim that, go ahead.

I meant it was a silly as the primitive belief that a god actually physically moves the sun from a position where it's set to a position where it has risen. Examples of such being Apollo pulling the chariot of the sun, etc. These are completely outmoded concepts and there are very few people who seriously believe them still. Science has given us a better answer.

Disagreeing with evolution however is on the same level. You accept that it is possible to say that everything the Sun does is because God made it do that but you refuse to apply the same to evolution and accept that maybe God made evolution too. And that is exactly the kind of behaviour I was on about in that post. The science has one explanation but you choose to ignore it because you don't like it. That's as silly as saying that God pulls the sun across the sky himself because you don't like the idea that the Earth goes round the sun.

Did you know, in fact, that Darwin didn't actually advocate "evolution?"  He merely observed what he saw of natural selection in the Galapagos and wrote a book on it.  It has been more modern sceintists that have twisted his observations into the theory we have today.

You've made a fundamental mistake. Why would any scientist give a **** about the beliefs of a long dead scientist? Science is not based on the wants, desires or beliefs of the scientists. It's based on repeatable experiments, logic and observations. Newton believed in God, Darwin apparently didn't (at least later on in his life), Archimedes believed in Zeus. Who cares? It certainly doesn't affect the validity or invalidity of their work.

Mendeleev for instance is a personal hero of mine. He got all kinds of things wrong (composition of Aether or how petroleum forms for instance) but that doesn't mean I can't respect him for what he did get right.

If Darwin didn't actually advocate "evolution" as you say, so what? He was wrong. The whole point of science is to figure out the bits that are wrong and replace them with the bits that are correct. I'd still respect the work he did coming up with natural selection in the first place.

And that's assuming you're right. Personally I think you're displaying a complete ignorance of Origin of the Species. Darwin's basic ideas on natural selection are largely unchanged. So unless you can substantiate your assertion, I'll put it down to the usual kind of bollocks I hear from creationists about Darwin.

[TrashMan]

Same applies to God - science can't disprove him either.

Logical method can, though - you just need to ask yourself which is bigger, universe (by definition "everything that is") or God?

If God exists, he is by definition part of the universe which contains "everything there is". That means that if God is an individual entity in the Universe, logically it follows that the universe itself is mightier, bigger and awesomer than God, which kinda puts this God being on the same line with us, a sentient being in the universe.

What ever gave you this silly idea? You can't prove or disprove God with logic.
It's like trying to contain a ocean within a tea spoon. It just doesn't work.

There are a bunch of people who like to claim that evolution is true but that God must have helped with the evolution of intelligence.  It's about as nonsensical as most of the other arguments against evolution.

Go ahead and prove it wrong then.

[Herra Tohtori]

What ever gave you this silly idea? You can't prove or disprove God with logic.
It's like trying to contain a ocean within a tea spoon. It just doesn't work.

You misunderstood me.

I was not exactly disproving the existence of God. I was simply showing that logically, a personal God entity is by definition smaller than the Universe (which contains everything there is) and therefore a personal God, an entity, is not the mightiest thing there is but instead simply an inhabitant of the universe.

The only way God could be on the top of things, so to speak, is to her being the Universe directly, at the same time consisting of and containing the whole universe. That of course leads to the question, "does Universe have a single, combined consciousness or not" - and THAT is the real question you should be asking, instead of "is there God or not". As I've stated before, I do not believe that the Universe has any ruling common consciousness and thus speaking of her as God is a bit misleading, but as I do believe in scientific method, I cannot entirely reject the concept since science doesn't disprove things. However, even if she does have a consciousness, then I am part of forming that consciousness just as you and the dirt and the algae and the nuclear bombs and black holes and it's a bit irrelevant to be considering what an afterlife would be - we would be part of Universe just as we are now, just without our individual consciousness any longer.

And by the way when I speak of Universe I literally mean "all there is". If we live in a multiverse, all worlds still belong to the Universe. If God exists outside our "universe" (without capital U), and even if he created our verse, he would still be part of Universe if he has any connection to our universe at all (and if he doesn't the question is moot anyway since what doesn't have any effect on our universe can with good reason be said not to exist).

Besides, since logic is by definition the study of truth and if God is the truth as you have claimed, then therefore God is just as subject to logic as you and I... oh wait, scratch that, you're not a subject to logic.

Logic transcends the limits of human mind and stays just as valid no matter what the entity performing it is. Same with mathematics and, fundamentally, natural sciences.